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GARIBALDI IN EXILE. 
(From an engraving in ttie Britisli Museum, from a photograph. i 



GARIBALDI 






GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 

GARIBALDrS DEFENCE OF THE ROMAN 

REPUBLIC 

With 7 Maps and 35 Illustrations. 

8vo. 6s. 6d. net. 

ENGLAND IN THE AGE OF WYCLIFFE. 

8vo. 6s. net. 



Edited by Edgar Powell and G. M. Teevelyan. 

THE PEASANTS' RISING AND THE 

LOLLARDS: 

A Collection of Unpublished Documents, forming an 

Appendix to ' England in the Age of Wychffe.' 

8vo. 6s. net. 



LONGMANS, GREEN, & 00. 

39 Paternoster Row, London, 

New York, Bombay, and Calcutta. 



GARIBALDI 
AND THE THOUSAND 



BY 

GEORGE MACAULAY TREVELYAN 

LATE FKLLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 

AUTHOR OF 

ENGLAND IN THE AGE OF WYCLIFFE ' 'ENGLAND UNDER THE STUARTS* 

'garibaldi's DEFENCE OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC* 



WITH FIVE MAPS AND NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS 



SECOND IMPRESSION 



LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 

39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 

NEW YORK, BOMBAY. AND CALCUTTA 

1909 

All rights reserved 



/I 



* / 



V 



'^■ 



V' 



c^~ 



'r\ 



TO MY FRIENDS 
GEOFFREY AND HILTON YOUNG 



PREFACE 



izeration of Nap.r= -^;_ _ 



Izz 77^5-- :— r Gi-ibaldi ani ^ 

coinplr-i rir li-g. Will togethrr trll :ir i: : 
baidi's parr m tJif z^r.-z"^ e~f~~5 :: i: f -- - 
Italy/ His r^ - i::; "li ^--^7 ^ - -- 

h-v- not exasperated it in :ni ^^-7 7 F- ' 
1859 WIS ^T year of C^v: ir i~ 1 : 17 iri" ij-i 



clctiies or in red sniri;?, a] 
^-^- i^i Lirriator. ^-Z 



r..-.2l of tJL 



au.%cj^!..— c^' 



dreams are made el yet invclv-i -7r -l.i : :i :f Italy^ 
has a char:::! ^^:^ "— - - 7^ 7-^^^ — ^— - -. -= 
reader the 7^:^:- in ~— :n it :? ^frr :: 1 __t .^ t. 

the larger exTf^Ti::!? :: — .7^r\:^-L- :_: .i^^ : — -rr- 

and wider charirter. :iz:: *"_ :e re"fr ~ei:f 1 -Z 1 5<friri:r 



viii GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

If I were asked why I attempt to write the history of 
events so recent as those of half a century ago, I could 
answer that, although no doubt some documents of great 
importance and many documents of slight importance will 
become available in the course of the next generation, the 
mass of material recently printed in Italy or now available 
in MS. is already very considerable indeed (see BibHography 
below, pp. 348-376), and that meanwhile the unwritten 
sources of information are rapidly drying up. The fact, that 
Generals Canzio and Tiirr both died within a few months 
of the time when I was privileged to converse with them 
on the events in which they played a part, is significant of 
the process to which I refer. In some respects this is the 
golden moment for writing the history of i860. Fifteen 
years ago there was not enough printed matter and MS. 
available, and fifteen years hence there will be nothing left 
except these printed sources. But oral witness has its 
historical value. The conversation of veterans must, of 
course, be hstened to with critical vigilance as well as 
with respect— I have known one contradict unwittingly 
on a point of detail what he had written in his diary fifty 
years back. But their impressions throw fight on the spirit, 
opinions, and mutual relations of the men and parties with 
whom they worked. And even in matters of detail, 
particularly in mifitary affairs, they often enable the 
puzzled historian to reconcile or choose between conflicting 
statements in books, or to understand some incident 
otherwise unintelligible. You cannot cross-examine a book 
or a MS. ; that is the weakness of written evidence which 
the presence of oral evidence rectifies in some degree. 

There are so many persons in Italy and in England whom 
I have to thank for help received in collecting the materials 
for this volume, that I scarcely know where to begin or 



PREFACE 



IX 



where to end. As before, I have had the free use of Mr. 
Nelson Gay's magnificent Risorgimento hbrary, and his 
personal assistance on many points. My debt to Cav. 
Alessandro Luzio of Mantua is greater than before. So is 
my debt to Signor Menghini of the Vittorio Emanuele 
library in Rome, and with him I must couple the Sindaco 
Nathan in thanks for access to the Mazzini papers. The 
names of Colonel Eha and Colonel Tedaldi may stand for 
those of many other veterans, who have so kindly endured 
and answered my inquiries. The Countess Martinengo 
Cesaresco, whose books convey better than any others to 
British readers the high spirit of the Risorgimento, has 
told me many things that cannot be found in books. 
I thank for their kindness to me, at Bologna, Signor 
Cantoni and my friends of the Casa ZanichelH ; at 
Milan, Signor G. Gallavresi and Colonel Carlo Pagani ; 
at Genoa, Aw. Pier Giulio Breschi who obtained for me 
the kind interest and services of his friend General Canzio, 
now deceased ; at Naples, Professor E. Zaniboni, and the 
members and President of the Societa Storia Patria. 

Above all, in Sicily the success of my researches has been 
dependent on the good will of others. Mrs. Joseph Whitaker 
and all the house of Whitaker ; Mr. Churchill, our consul, 
then at Palermo, now at Naples ; and my kind hosts at 
Marsala, Mr. and Mrs. Gray, have treated me as a man 
loves to be treated by his countrymen abroad. I had 
even less claim on the personal assistance of native 
Sicilians, but I obtained it abundantly. I should mention 
first Dott. G. Paolucci, v/hose work on the subject has been 
so valuable a guide, even in the few matters where I have 
ventured to differ from him. Professor Pitre himself was also 
most kind to me. So were Signor Santostefano Marches! della 
Cerda ; Cav. Agostino Rotolo ; Signor Giuseppe Campo ; 
Signor Carlo Albanese ; Signor Costatini and his fellow 



X GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

citizens of Piana dei Greci ; Signer Lipari of Marsala ; 
Commendatore Salinas ; Senatore Guarneri ; Senatore 
Beltrani Scalia ; Cav. Giuseppe Lodi, whom I thank for the 
use of his valuable collection ; Cav. Uff. G. Travali, and 
the authorities of the Archivio di Stato in Palermo ; and 
many others. 

In England, I must thank Lord Carlisle once more for the 
loan and gift of books, and also Lady Mary Murray. Lady 
Agatha Russell and Mr. Rollo Russell, Miss Peard, Miss 
Margaret Shaen, Mr. Charles Lacaita, Mr. Arthur Elliot, Mr. 
Herbert Craig, Lady Lockwood, Mrs. Osier, and Mr. Malleson 
have all put family papers at my disposal. I must also 
thank Sir Cecil Spring Rice, Mr. Marchetti of Halifax 
(Garibaldino of 1859), and others whose names occur in the 
notes and appendices of this volume. 

Four persons have been at the pains to read the volume 
in MS. or in proof — Mr. Hilton Young ; my wife ; Mr. 
Thayer of Harvard, one of the foremost scholars of Risor- 
gimento history ; and Count Ugo Balzani, whose inex- 
haustible kindness to me is one of the many reasons why 
it is so pleasant to be often called to visit Italy 

G. M. TREVELYAN. 

June 1909, 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 



PAGE 



INTRODUCTION .....'. I 

I. GARIBALDI IN EXILE, 1849-54 .... 8 
II. CAVOUR AND THE CONVALESCENCE OF ITALY — 

GARIBALDI AT CAPRERA 26 

III. THE NEAPOLITAN PRISONERS 3^ 

IV, CAVOUR BRINGS THE DEMOCRATS AND NAPOLEON 

III INTO HIS CAMP — PISACANE's EXPEDITION — 
PLOMBIERES AND THE DECLARATION OF WAR 

AGAINST AUSTRIA — 1856-59 .... 63 

V. garibaldi's ALPINE CAMPAIGN, 1859 ... 82 

VI. VILLAFRANCA AND AFTER HO 

VII. NAPLES, 1859 — MARCH 1860 T24 

VIII. SICILY: THE REVOLT OF APRIL 4, 1860 — ROSOLINO 

PILO AND THE HOPE OF GARIBALDl's COMING . I43 
IX. THE ORIGINS OF THE EXPEDITION — NICE OR 

SICILY 162 

X. THE VILLA AT QUARTO — THE PREPARATIONS . . I79 

XI. THE SAILING OF THE THOUSAND .... I99 

XII. TALAMONE AND THE VOYAGE ..... 211 

XIII. THE LANDING OF THE THOUSAND AT MARSALA . 224 

XIV. THE BATTLE CALATAFIMI 245 

XV. IN THE MOUNTAINS ROUND PALERMO . . . 265 

XVI. GIBILROSSA — PALERMO ON THE EVE . . . 283 

XVII. THE TAKING OF PALERMO 295 

EPILOGUE 328 

APPENDICES 329 

A CAPRERA ...... . . 329 

E NUMBERS AT VARESE AND COMO ..... 33I 

C THE DEATH-BED OF FRANCESCO RISO .... 332 



xu 



GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 



APPENDICES — continued. 

D GARIBALDI IN CAPRERA IN FEBRUARY 1860 . , 

E LAURENCE OLIPHANT'S STORY .... 

F BERTANl'S TWO STATEMENTS .... 

G THE DECISIVE INTERVIEW AT VILLA SPINOLA, APRIL 30 

H CAVOUR AND THE KING AT BOLOGNA ON MAY 2 

J FAUCHE AND RUBATTINO ..... 

K THE FINANCES OF THE EXPEDITION OF THE THOUSAND 

L WHY THE FRENCH EVACUATION WAS STOPPED , 

M CALATAFIMI ....... 

N THE NIGHT MARCH TO PARCO, MAY 21-22 . . 

O FROM PIANA DEI GRECI TO MARINEO . . , 

P THE ROUTE FROM GIBILROSSA TO PALERMO . 



333 

334 
335 
337 
338 
340 
340 
342 
342 
344 
345 
346 



BIBLIOGRAPHY : LIST OF PRINTED MATTER AND MSS. CON 
SULTED BY THE AUTHOR . 

I. PRINTED MATTER . . , . 

n. MANUSCRIPTS . . . , , 

III. NOTES OF CONVERSATIONS . , 

POEMS ...... 



348 
370 

374 
375 



INDEX 



377 



LIST OF PLATES 



GARIBALDI IN EXILE Frontispiece 

From an Engraving in British Museum, done from a Photograph. 

PAGE 

CAVOUR facing 27 

From a Contemporary Print in Bianchi's ' Cavour. ' 

GARIBALDI AT GAPRERA „ 33 

From an Engraving in British Museum. 

THE FIGHT AT THE GANGLY CONVENT, APRIL 4, 1860 „ 155 
From a Contemporary Print in the Museo Nazionale, Palermo. 

CAPTURE OF RISO'S PARTY, AND SACK OF THE GANCIA 

CONVENT, APRIL 4, 1860 „ I56 

From a Contemporary Print in the Museo Nazionale, Palermo. 



ROSOLINO PILO . 

From a Contemporary Print. 



BATTLE-FIELD OF CALATAFIMI — ^THE PIANTO DEI 
ROMANI 

From a Photograph by Mr. Hilton Young. 



159 



THE ROCK AT QUARTO — I ,, 203 

From a Photograph taken in the 'Sixties, in the possession 0/ 
Lady Agatha Russell. 

THE ROCKS AT QUARTO — II ,, 204 

From a Photograph taken in the 'Sixties, given to the author by 
General Canzio. 

GARIBALDI IN HIS ' PUNCIO,' 1860 • • . . „ 205 

From a Photograph taken at Naples in the autumn of i86o, 

NINO BIXIO ,,222 

From a Photograph about i860. 

THE LANDING AT MARSALA ••••'„ 238 

From a Contemporary Oil Painting done at Marsala. 



254 



A ' TERRACE ' OF THE PIANTO DEI ROMANI . . „ 256 

From a Photograph by Mr. Hilton Young. 

ANOTHER ' TERRACE ' OF THE PIANTO DEI ROMANI . „ 256 
From a Photograph by Mr. Hilton Young. 



XIV 



GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 



GARIBALDI 



facing 



From an Engraving by W. Holl from an Original Photograph, 
British Museum. 



CALATAFIMI 

From a Photograph by Mr. Hilton Young. 

PALERMO, CONCA 



d'ORO AND 



OUTSKIRTS OF 

MOUNTAINS 

From a Photograph by Mr. Hilton Young. 

GIBILROSSA MONASTERY AS SEEN FROM THE TOP OF 
THE PASS ,..-•••• 

From a Photograph by Mr. Hilton Young. 

GIBILROSSA MONASTERY 

Nearer View. From a Photograph by Mr. Hilton Young. 

THE SUMMIT OF GIBILROSSA PASS .... 

From a Photograph. 

PONTE dell' AMMIRAGLIO 

From a Photograph by Mr. Hilton Young. 

THE FIERA VECCHIA, PALERMO . . 

From a Photograph by Mr. Hilton Young. 

THE QUATTRO CANTONI, PALERMO . . ^ . 

From a Photograph. 
THE FOUNTAIN OF THE PIAZZA PRETORIO, PALERMO . 

From the ' Album Garibaldi,' i860. 
PATRIOTS DEFENDING A BARRICADE CLOSE TO THE 
CATHEDRAL .....•• 

From a Contemporary Print in the Museo Nazionale, Palermo. 

BARRICADES OF PAVING STONES AT THE PORTA 
MACQUEDA 

From the ' Album Garibaldi,' i860. 

THE ROYAL PALACE, PALERMO ..... 
From a Photograph by Mr. Hilton Young. 

VIEW FROM THE ROYAL PALACE ROOF 
From a Photograph by Mr. Hilton Young. 

PALERMO CATHEDRAL 

From an Old Engraving. 
THE CASTELLAMARE, PALERMO. WITH MONTE PELLE- 

GRINO IN THE DISTANCE 

From a Photograph by Mr. Hilton Young. 
INSIDE THE MONTALTO BASTION — ^MEDIEVAL WALLS 

OF PALERMO 

From a Photograph by Mr. Hilton Young. 



PAGE 

260 



264 
264 

288 

288 

289 
298 

298 

304 
306 

308 

310 

311 
311 
312 

318 

318 



LIST OF PLATES xv 



PAGE 



THE ARMISTICE OF MAY 30 . . • • facing 321 

From the ' Ventisette Maggio.' 

SAN GIOVANNI DEGLI EREMITI, PALERMO . . . „ 326 

From a Photograph by Mr. Hilton Young. 
THE OBSERVATORY OVER THE PORTA NUOVA, PALERMO „ 3^6 

From a Photograph by Mr. Htiton Young. 



LIST OF MAPS 

PAGE 

I. CAMPAIGN IN THE ALPS, 1859 .... facing QI 
For Chap. V. 

II, MARSALA, MAY II, 1860 ..... f. ^33 
For Chap. XIII. 

III. WESTERN SICILY. (iNSET OF BATTLE OF 

CALATAFIMl) »» 37° 

For Chaps. XIII-XV. 

IV. [a] ENVIRONS OF PALERMO ^ 

For Chaps. XV-XVII. j- . . . . „ 376 

(&) PALERMO, MAY 27, 1860J 
For Chap. XVII. 

V. ITALY AT TIME OF THE SAILING OF THE 

THOUSAND, MAY 1860. (iNSETS OF ITALY 

IN APRIL AND AUTUMN 1859) • . ■ » 37^ 

For Chaps. I-XIII inclusive. 

N B.— Maps III, IV, V are folding maps at end of book, p. 376. 
Map V will be of assistance to the reader throughout the whole book. 
Places in Italy mentioned in text, but not marked in the other maps, 
will be found there. 



Seldom do we find that a whole people can be said to have 
any Faith at all; except in things that it can eat and handle. 
Whensoever it gets any Faith, its history becomes spirit-stirring, 
noteworthy.'— Carlyle, French Revolution. 



GARIBALDI AND THE 
THOUSAND 



■- INTRODUCTION 

When, on New Year's Day 1859, the Emperor Napoleon 
III startled Europe by a few polite but ominous words 
spoken to the Austrian ambassador, Italy of the Italians 
was still confined to the small state of Piedmont, nestling 
between the Alps and the sea. Strong not in the numbers 
but in the character of its citizens, it enjoyed the respect of 
Europe, the sympathy of France and England, and the 
wistful affection of the inhabitants of the other states of the 
peninsula — sentiments inspired by the well-ordered Parlia- 
mentary government of King Victor Emmanuel and his 
minister Cavour. The rest of Italy, still partitioned 
among half a dozen different rulers, was exposed to the 
absolute power of priests, of foreigners, or of native despots, 
bound together in a close triple alliance against the rights 
of the laity, personal freedom, and Italian independence. 
Two years went by, and the aspect of affairs had undergone 
a change so complete and sudden that many would not 
believe that it was indeed destined to be permanent. When, 
in November i860. Garibaldi resigned the Dictatorship of 
Sicily and Naples, and sailed back to his farm on Caprera 
with a large bag of seed-corn and a small handful of lira 
notes, he left Victor Emmanuel acknowledged as constitu- 
tional monarch in all those territories that we now know as 
the Kingdom of Italy — with the exception of two or three 
fortresses where the Bourbon flag fjejw for yet a few months 



2 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

longer, of the ancient territories of the Venetian Republic, 
still guarded by the Austrian Quadrilateral, and of that 
narrow ' Patrimony ' of the earlier Popes, where the herds- 
men and vine-dressers could descry the cupola of St. Peter's 
floating above the evening mist, like the ark of the Church 
above the tide of revolution. In the winter of i86o~6i a 
patriot could have travelled from Brescia to Reggio and 
Palermo by the whole central chain of the Apennines, 
without let or hindrance from any anti-national force except 
an occasional party of brigands in the Neapolitan provinces. 
If it was not till 1866 that the Austrian colours were lowered 
from the three great flag-staffs that stand in front of St. Mark's 
at Venice, if it was not till after the news of Sedan that Italy 
could wisely dare to enter Rome, none the less the creation 
of the new State was already an accomplished fact when 
Garibaldi quitted Naples for Caprera. 

We may therefore say that in the years 1859 ^^^ i860 
the Italians acquired their national independence, their 
civic freedom and their political union. This profound and 
permanent change in the European polity was effected con- 
trary to the expectations and wishes of nearly all the rest 
of Europe, and under the guns of France and Austria, who, 
differing on so many points as regards the fate of Italy, 
were at least agreed in objecting to her union under a single 
ruler. To neither of these powers could she have offered 
a prolonged military resistance, yet she attained her 
purpose in their despite. 

The rapid series of events that led to results so great, 
and apparently so improbable, was brought to fruition by 
the supreme political genius of one Italian, and by the 
crowning achievement of another, whose name is to the 
modern world the synonym of simple heroism. The story of 
Italy in these two years is rich in all the elements whereby 
history becomes inspiring, instructive and dramatic. In it 
we read of all the qualities that make us respect or despise 
mankind ; here the heroism and there the cowardice of whole 
populations ; the devotion of individuals and of families, 
side by side with the basest egoism ; the highest wisdom 



THE MAKING OF ITALY, 1859-60 3 

and the wildest folly ; the purest patriotism and the meanest 
jealousy, not always found in opposite factions or even in 
separate breasts. We watch the play of great personalities ; 
the kaleidoscopic shifting of the diplomatic forces of Europe ; 
bewildering turns of chance, messengers who would have 
saved a kingdom stopped by the whim of villagers, decisions 
of peace or war reached a few days too late or a few days too 
soon to turn the current of destiny, hair-breadth escapes of 
men and armies on whom all depended ; heroism, tragedy 
and burlesque taking the stage of history together. Finally, 
we witness the success of the most hazardous enterprises ; 
the fall of kingdoms and principalities : the dismember- 
ment of the most ancient and terrible Theocracy of the 
western world ; the realisation of those hopes for which 
the martyrs of Italy had suffered and perished for two 
generations, and a full share of the discontent and dis- 
illusionment which follows when the dreams of the noblest 
of men are carried out in actual fact by populations just 
set free from the corrupting servitude of centuries. 

It has sometimes been said that * Italy was made too 
fast.' It has been argued that the too rapid introduction 
of modern political machinery and the too rapid unification 
of such different populations as those of the north, centre 
and south, are largely responsible for the shortcomings of 
the Italy of to-day, though these may with more justice be 
ascribed to deep-seated sociological causes stretching back 
through two thousand years of Italian history. But how- 
ever this may be, it appears highly probable that if Italy 
had not acquired her independence when she did, and as 
rapidly as she did, and in the form of complete political 
union, she might never have acquired it at all. If she had 
not shaken off Austrian, Pope, and Bourbon, in an age of 
war and revolution, she would scarcely have done so in a 
later age of nations perilously armed, but afraid of war and 
impatient of all questions that might endanger peace, 
Italy could never have been liberated without one European 
war at least. Her liberty was not, in fact, fully completed 
short of three European wars, those of 1859, 1866 and 1870. 



4 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

In each of those three years of cataclysm she picked her 
own advantage out of the clash of combatants stronger than 
herself. If she had not been freed before 1871, nay, if she 
had not been three parts freed before the death of Cavour 
in 1861, her cause would not improbably have declined like 
that of Poland. Poland's last struggle was in 1863 ; if 
Italy had struggled and failed in i860, the golden moment 
might never have returned. In the last thirty years of the 
nineteenth century no country would have gone to war 
so lightly as did France in 1859 on behalf of oppressed 
Lombardy, and anything analogous to Garibaldi's attack 
on the Bourbon would have been prevented by the Concert 
of Europe, as a wanton outrage on peace and order. But, 
in July i860, England broke up such partial Concert of 
Europe as then existed, and refused to prevent Garibaldi 
from crossing the Straits of Messina. That decision of 
Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston is one of the 
causes why Italy is a free and united State to-day. 

Furthermore, the Risorgimento movement in Italy 
herself, after two generations of ever increasing heat, was 
at boiling point in 1859-60. If the cause had failed again 
in those years as hopelessly as in 1848-49, it may well be 
doubted whether these ardours would not have cooled and 
frozen in despair. The ' disillusionment ' and ' pessimism,' 
of which we hear talk in modern Italy, would have been 
more widespread and of a far more deadly kind if the hopes of 
achieving the Risorgimento had perished. The Italy of the 
twentieth century might have relapsed into the Italy of 
the eighteenth. Again, even if the patriotic movement had 
continued unabated, the social problem would have arisen 
to complicate and thwart the political movement for inde- 
pendence, by dividing classes which were united for the 
national object in the Italy of fifty years ago. 

In short, if Cavour, Victor Emmanuel and Garibaldi 
could not have freed their land in the days of Napoleon 
III and Palmerston, and while the impulse given by Mazzini 
was still fresh, it is doubtful whether anyone would have 
been able to free her at a later period. She could not afford 



IMPORTANCE OF GARIBALDI'S PART 5 

to await the slow processes of an uncertain evolution in the 
face of hostile forces really stronger than she, and determined 
to crush any natural growth by brute force ; she had to 
seize the opportunity created for her by Cavour before 
it went by for ever. Like most other great steps that have 
been made to ameliorate the human lot, the Italian revolu- 
tion was not inevitable, but was the result of wisdom, of 
valour, and of chance. 



Only outside Italy, and by persons who have not studied 
Risorgimento history in any detail, do we ever hear it denied 
that Garibaldi's great expedition of i860 carried on the main 
work of Italian unity, at a time when no other means could 
have availed for its accomplishment. All schools of Italian 
historians are, I think, agreed that the Sicilian and 
Neapolitan populations had proved incapable of effecting 
a revolution in the face of an army of 90,000 men, without 
external help ; that Cavour was unable, owing to the attitude 
of Europe, and in particular of France and Austria, to give 
that help with the regular forces of the North Italian king- 
dom ; that nothing, therefore, could have liberated Sicily 
and Naples except an irresponsible ' raid ' by volunteers 
of the revolutionary party, and that no such ' raid ' could 
have succeeded except one led by Garibaldi ; finally, that it 
was only the Garibaldian revolution in Sicily and Naples 
that put Cavour into the position from which he ventured, 
in the face of Europe, to attack the Pope's possessions in 
Umbria and the Marches, and so to unite the whole length 
of the peninsula in one continuous state. This chain of 
reasoning, which establishes the supreme historical impor- 
tance of Garibaldi's expedition, has been fortified by the 
patient research of Italian scholars during recent years, 
when so much has been done for the scientific study of the 
history of the Risorgimento. 

The question still in debate among Italian historians 
is the degree of credit which Cavour can claim for Garibaldi's 
success. One school, of which Signor Luzio is the able 



6 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

representative, maintains that the great minister aided and 
abetted the Sicilian expedition from the first, not under 
compulsion from king and people, but as a part of his own 
policy ; the opposite school seeks to deny to him even the 
merit of goodwill. It is possible now to trace many of 
Cavour's principal actions in the matter, but his motives 
and intentions from day to day are not always clear and are 
still in some cases open to different interpretations. But 
there can be no question that the assistance which he gave 
was absolutely indispensable to the success of the enterprise. 

The technical reputation of Garibaldi as a soldier depends 
on the history of 1859 ^-^^ i860, when he himself was at the 
late prime of his powers, and in command of an instrument 
suited to his methods. In 1849, he had not yet fully 
adapted to the conditions of European warfare the system 
which he had evolved on the Pampas ; in his later campaigns 
of 1866, 1867 and 1870, old and lame, he had no longer the 
ubiquitous personal energy which was the first condition 
of success in his method of war, he was in command of forces 
of mixed quality, and, in short, neither he nor his men were 
any longer 

that strength which in old days 
Moved earth and heaven. 

The generation now passing away has judged Garibaldi 
overmuch by what they recollected of the performances of his 
decline and decadence, which his partial countrymen have 
praised too much. But his ultimate place in history, not 
only as a soldier but as a patriot and magical leader of men, 
must depend primarily on those great achievements which 
I shall here attempt to record. 

There is, for the historian, an unique interest in the 
detailed study of the Garibaldian epic. We can make no 
such minute inquiry into the lives of Wallace and Tell, 
and of others who resembled him both in the nature 
of their work as liberators, patriots and partisan warriors, 
and in the romantic and old-world circumstances of their 



HISTORY AND THE EPIC 7 

achievements. The records of Wallace and the dimmer 
legends of Tell are so meagre that they leave on us the 
impression of the heroic figures of Flaxman's outlines, 
with certain noble stories attached to their names. 
Even the fuller records of Joan of Arc, to whom 
Treitschke compared Garibaldi, date from a time so far 
back in the infancy of historical method, that in our 
day the learned can still dispute as to the nature of the 
influences which she underwent herself, and exerted over 
others. But the records of the Italian national hero and 
his deeds are detailed to the point of realism. We possess 
such a mass of evidence, official and unofficial, printed, 
written and oral, of his friends and his enemies, his followers 
and his opponents in the field, that we certainly do not 
lack the material to fill in a living picture of the man and his 
achievements. 

How then, examined in so clear a light, do the legendary 
exploits of Garibaldi appear ? Does the surrounding 
atmosphere of poetry and high idealism, when considered 
curiously, evaporate like a mirage ? Or does it not rather 
take shape as a definite historical fact, an important part of 
the causes of things and a principal part of their value ? 
To my mind the events of i860 should serve as an encourage- 
ment to all high endeavour amongst us of a later age, who, 
with our eyes fixed on realism and the doctrine of evolution, 
are in some danger of losing faith in ideals, and of forgetting 
the power that a few fearless and utterly disinterested men 
may have in a world where the proportion of cowards and 
egoists is not small. The story of that auspicious hour 
when the old-new nation of Italy achieved her deliverance 
by -the wisdom of Cavour and the valour of Garibaldi will 
remain with mankind to warn the rash that the brave man, 
whatever he and his friends may think, cannot dispense 
with the guidance of the wise, — and to teach the prudent 
that in the uncertain currents of the world's affairs, there 
come rare moments, hard to distinguish but fatal to let slip, 
when caution is dangerous, when all must be set upon 
a hazard, and out of the simple man is ordained strength. 



CHAPTER T 

GARIBALDI IN EXILE, 1849-54 

We who have seen Italia In the throes, 
Half risen but to be hurled to the ground, and now. 
Like a ripe field of wheat where once drove plough, 
All bounteous as she is fair, we think of those 

Who blew the breath of life into her frame : 
Cavour, Mazzini, Garibaldi : Three : 
Her Brain, her Soul, her Sword ; and set her free 
From ruinous discords, with one lustrous aim. . . . 

Georgk Meredith. For the Centenary of Garibaldi. 

Times, July i, 1907. 

The hopes of the revolutionary leaders of 1848-49, after a 
brief period of fuhlment, were shattered in Italy as else- 
where by the military force of the powers of reaction. 
The idealists, patriots, and demagogues who had for a few 
weeks borne rule in half the capitals of Europe were crowded 
into prisons or huddled into nameless graves, while in little 
towns overlooking the waters of Swiss lakes, and on board 
steamers bound for America or England, groups of emaciated 
and ill clad men, their faces scarred with misery, could be 
seen dividing among themselves scanty sums of money with 
more than fraternal affection, and imparting in whispers 
some new tale of disaster and death. 

The most memorable of the closing scenes of the Euro- 
pean tragedy had been the defence of the Roman Republic, 
which the patriots from the north Italian provinces, led by 
Mazzini and Garibaldi, had inspired with heroism and 
invested with an imperishable glory. From the moment 
when the flag of the degenerate French Republic was vic- 
toriously planted on the Janiculum among the corpses of 
the Bersagheri and the Red-shirts, the Catholics of France 
enjoyed that coveted occupation of Rome which was 

s 



ESCAPE OF GARIBALDI, 1849 9 

destined by a bitter irony to involve them and their cause 
in irreparable ruin ; and Louis Napoleon commenced to drag 
towards the final catastrophe of Sedan the lengthening chain 
of servitude and embarrassment, which, as he soon found, 
was all that he gained from his protectorate of the Pope. 

Meanwhile Garibaldi, not content with having defended 
Rome long beyond the last hour of hope, gathered round 
him those who would not or could not ask grace of the 
restored Papal government, and, carrying the lost cause 
into the Apennines, eluded during the month of July 1849 
the pursuing armies of Naples, Spain, France and Austria, 
until his last forces were captured or disbanded. Then, in 
the marshlands near Ravenna, his wife Anita died in his 
arms, and he himself, torn away from her death-bed lest 
the Austrian searchers should find him there, escaped across 
Italy after a series of perilous adventures in company of a 
single follower. Leggier 0. At length, on the 2nd of Septem- 
ber 1849, the two fugitives embarked in a fishing boat 
provided by the patriots of the Tuscan Maremma.^ Some 
ten days earlier, the surrender of Venice and its heroic 
defender Manin to the Austrians had brought the last 
struggle to an end, and ' order ' reigned once more from 
Sicily to the Alps. 

Before we turn our attention to Italy's convalescence 
under the skilful treatment of Cavour, it will be well first 
to follow the course of Garibaldi's proscribed and wandering 
life, and to note how he preserved himself for his country 
through years of banishment and grief, without acquiring 
either the faults usual to exiles and fallen chieftains, or 
those which marred his own later life after the successes 
of i860. He who is accused of being the most impatient 
and headstrong of men, showed a marvellous patience and 
a sound political instinct for awaiting opportunity during 
the years of his life when he had most to bear, and most 
temptation to grow weary of delay. 

The first occasion for the display of this spirit of patriotic 

^ The events here alluded to. including tlie siege of Rome, are told at 
length in the author's Garibaldi's Defence of the Roman Republic, 



10 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

self-restraint arose only a few hours after he and Leg.iero 
had landed on September 5, 1849. on the asylum of Pied- 
montese territory.i The presence of the military chief 
01 the late Roman Republic, who, next to Mazzini and 
Kossuth, was in the eyes of Austria the most obnoxious 
o± all refugees, created a situation of embarrassment 
and even of danger for the only free State in Italy 
Piedmont, not yet recovered from the consequences of 
the unfortunate Novara campaign of the previous March 
could not too boldly defy the wishes of Austria. It was 
much that the brave young king, Victor Emmanuel, should 
venture, m the face of the twice victorious white-coats 
camped on the Ticino, to preserve the Parhamentary 
Constitution to which he had sworn, especially as the 
Parliament was at that time dominated by a somewhat 
hysterical Democratic party, unwilling frankly to accept 
the facts of defeat. France, indeed, was the ultimate pro- 
tection from the insulting demands of Austria, but to 
France the defender of Rome was as hateful as he was 
to Austria herself. The external situation, therefore, made it 
dangerous to harbour Garibaldi. But the internal situation 
rendered it no less dangerous to expel him, except with his 
own consent. For in the towns of the long sea-board of 
Piedmont, especially in Genoa, the hotbed of Repubhcan 
democracy, in Chiavari, whence Garibaldi's family origin- 
ated, and in Nice, where it now resided, he was regarded 
at once as the national hero of Italy, and as the pride of his 
own Ligurian coast. At Chiavari, where, on the evening 
of September 6, his arrest was effected in the most poHte 
and friendly manner possible, he would certainly have been 
released by the populace from the Carahinieri who were to 
accompany him to Genoa, but for his own active collusion 
vvith the authorities.^ And not only was the mob on his 
side, but the Parliamentary majority, moved by a natural 
' This took place on the morning of September 5, at Porto Venere at 
the north end of the Gulf of Spezia, see Guerzoni, i 386, 587 • mZ\To 

* Riv. di Roma, July 1907, p. 398. 



EXPULSION FROM PIEDMONT ii 

and praiseworthy desire to do honour to the man who had 
honoured Italy by his heroism, and moved also by a factious 
desire to render the Moderate government odious, passed 
on September lo the following resolution :— 

' That the arrest of General Garibaldi and his threatened 
expulsion from Piedmont are contrary to the rights assured by the 
statute, to the sentiments of patriotism, and to the glory of Italy. 

Thus supported by the majority of the Chamber, the claims of 
Garibaldi to residence in his own country were perilously 
strong, and if at this point he had yielded to the temptation 
to exploit his popularity and to accept the flattery of a 
party at the expense of the welfare of the State, he might 
have caused grave hurt to Italy. But he had not come to 
Piedmont with any expectation of being permitted to reside 
in her territories. He had preferred it to a British ship as 
his first harbour of refuge, only because he desired to see his 
now motherless children at Nice.i No friendly enthusiasts 
could persuade him to resist, or even to resent, the deter- 
mination of the Government to send him again on his travels. 
To one of his principal champions in the Piedmontese 
poHtical arena, he wrote with simple gratitude and dignity :— 

' I sail to-morrow for Tunis with the Tripoli. I have been 
watching all that you and your generous colleagues have done 
for me. I charge you to convey to them the sense of my grati- 
tude. I have no reason to complain of anyone. The present is 
a time for resignation, because it is a time of misfortune.' 2 

Before his final departure, the Government allowed him 
to spend a few hours at Nice. The Httle port beside whose 
wharfs he was bom and bred is closely penned in by steep 
hills, which happily still shut out from the old ' Nizza ' of 
Garibaldi the long modem esplanade which is the 'Nice ' 
of the visitor,—' the cosmopohtan seat of all that is cor- 
TOpt,' as its great citizen called it in his anger after it had 
been ceded to France. But the old town beneath the 
shadow of the hill was all alive with its simple sailor life 

» Mem, 260. 2 cUmpoli, 48. Mem. 261. 



12 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

on the September evening in 1849 when Garibaldi, having 
given his parole to those who had him in charge, landed 
from the steamer, and was received into the arms of his own 
people. A crowd of relatives and friends of his boyhood, 
at the head of the enthusiastic populace, carried him to the 
door of his sad home. As he entered it, his old mother fell 
on his neck, while little Menotti and Ricciotti clung round 
their father's knees and cried out : ' And is Mama coming 
too ? ' It was a bitter meeting, and yet all too short. 
When he was gone, his mother, who was eighty years old, 
said to a friend that she should never live to set eyes again 
on her son who was so great and good.^ 

Though driven from Italy, Garibaldi still hoped to remain 
somewhere on the shores of the Mediterranean. The Pied- 
montese Government sent him first to Tunis, but the Bey 
refused to allow him to land. Thus left on the hands of 
his native state, he was temporarily put ashore on Madda- 
lena, the chief of a group of small islands off the north 
coast of Sardinia, where he remained for a month as an 
honoured guest and friend among a patriotic sea-going 
population. The neighbouring rock ridge of desert Caprera 
is divided from Maddalena by a channel only a few hun- 
dred yards wide, but as yet no thought of settHng there 
appears to have crossed his mind, and no dream that 
through him Caprera would become a name in history and 
in song.2 

On October 24, 1849,3 he was taken off Maddalena by 
a Piedmontese vessel which conveyed him to Gibraltar. 

^ Mario, 178 ; Mem. 9,261. 

2 Risorg, anno i., iv. 590-598, Gar. da Genova a Tangieri. Falconi, 
12-24, local authority on Garibaldi at Maddalena and Caprera. At Madda- 
lena it was observed that Garibaldi wore a ' mediaeval ' costume, ' con- 
sisting of a close-fitting blouse of black velvet, trousers of the same, with 
top-boots, and an Italian hat with brim turned up and feather ' {Falconi, 
14, 19). In the following years in America, England and Italy he wore a 
black frock-coat buttoned up to the neck (see frontispiece). Only 
on the famous evening of May 5, i860, was the red shirt again unpacked. 

3 Falconi, 21, 22, and Risorg, anno i., iv. 602 give us this date. 
Guerzoni, i. 394, wrongly speaks of the date of departure from Maddalena 
as some time in 1850, 



AT TANGIER 13 

There the British governor allowed him to land on November 
10, on condition that after fifteen days he should go to 
England or to some other land of refuge. Garibaldi was 
hurt at this notice to quit. ' From a representative of 
England/ he wrote, ' the land of asylum for all, the blow 
cut me to the heart.' 1 

But he was not entirely abandoned. At this nadir of 
his fortunes, he received a welcome invitation from the 
Piedmontese consul at Tangier to come and live in his 
house. There Garibaldi stayed, from November 1849 to 
June 1850, under conditions well suited to heal his deeply 
wounded spirit. For he was a man of the old world and 
of the open air. He did not require for his distraction either 
intellectual stimulants or artificial excitement, but found 
the medicine and food for which he craved in long, solitary 
gazing on the sea and on wild nature ; in severe exercise 
out of doors, varied by some quiet handicraft ; and in the 
company of one or more of those numerous persons, 
great and small, wise and simple, who could boast the 
title of ' Garibaldi's friends.' All these resources he had 
at Tangier, as afterwards when he settled for so many years 
at Caprera. At Tangier his friends were Leggiero, who had 
been the comrade of his recent adventurous escape across 
Italy, his kind host, and the English consul Murray. He 
occupied himself in making sails, fishing tackle and cigars, 
and in using them all when made. Once at least he shot a 
wild boar, and he describes himself as the ' scourge of the 
rabbits.' Alone with his dog Castor, to whom he became 
fondly attached and who died of grief on his departure, he 
would spend days together in the wilds, living on the game 
he shot, and sleeping out in the southern night under groves 
of magnificent olive trees. It was thus that he struggled 
with the greatest sorrow of his life. 

' Tortured by certain memories,' he wrote in February 1850, 

1 iZfsofg, anno i.,iv. 598, 602. Mem. 263. The British islands themselves 
would of course have been open to him, as the Governor himself expr-essly 
stated. Also he had fifteen days' notice, not six as he wrongly says in his 
Memoirs. 



14 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

' and by the low condition of our country's affairs, I try to 
distract myself by shooting expeditions, and succeed — materially 
at least, very well.' 

His one intellectual employment at Tangier was writing the 
memoir of his South American life, which still remains 
as the chief source of our knowledge of his lost Anita, her 
heroism in obscure skirmishes long forgotten, and her devotion 
in a love that the world will never forget. ^ 

During his seven months' holiday at Tangier, he was 
constantly but vainly seeking employment as a merchant 
captain. He had already refused a pension for himself, offered 
by Massimo D'Azeglio, Victor Emmanuel's upright premier, 
but he had accepted one for his old mother, and he had also 
received sums by way of journey money for himself — facts 
significant of his friendly attitude towards the monarchy .2 
The education of his children, left with the Deideris and 
other kind friends at Nice, must be defrayed by the 
labour of his own hands, if he would not depend on the 
abundant charity of those who loved him. The prospect 
of regaining, after sixteen years of lawless adventure, his 
youthful footing in the mercantile marine of the Mediter- 
ranean faded away before the opposition of European 
diplomacy, determined to drive him back across the 
Atlantic.^ In April 1850 he had some thoughts of returning 
to Monte Video, but in June he left Tangier for North 
America.* 

Going by way of Liverpool to New York, he was seized on 
the voyage by the severe rheumatic pains which maimed 
and tortured him at intervals during the remainder of his 
life. ' I was lifted on shore like a piece of luggage,' he 
writes. His hopes of obtaining a ship for himself at New 
York proved illusory, and he was fain to work as a journey- 
man candlemaker in a small factory just set up on Staten 

1 Ciampoli, 49-60, and 935. Mem. 263, 264. 

2 Panizzi, 478 (D'Azeglio's letter, July 25, 1864). Ciampoli, 50, 51, 
59, 62. Risorg, anno i., iv. 598-600, 

' Ciampoli, 56. 

* For these dates, see letters in Ciampoli, 56, 59-61. 



THE JOURNEYMAN CANDLEMAKER 15 

Island by his good friend and compatriot, Meucci, M'ho 
treated him, however, not as a mere employee, but as one 
of his own family. In company with another Italian 
labourer, and the inevitable Pat, the defender of Rome and 
the future conqueror of Sicily and Naples might be seen 

* bringing up barrels of tallow for the boiling vat ' from 
' the old Vanderbilt landing.' 

New York was at that time full of political refugees, 
and the Americans regarded the victims of ' feudal Europe ' 
with the sympathy due to fellow Republicans. But Gari- 
baldi, unlike Kossuth, politely refused to allow the ' leading 
citizens ' to fete him or produce him in public, as they 
had wished to do on his first arrival in their midst. 
He lived among his own people, melancholy and more 
depressed than even they were aware, but gentle and 
generous as ever. His spare linen and even the red shirt 
in which he had defended Rome went to clothe his poorer 
compatriots. 

An American who knew him at this period noted his 

* free and athletic movements, notwithstanding ill health 
and rheumatism which disables his right arm,' and his 
' easy, natural, frank and unassuming carriage/ ' his 
freedom of utterance and the propriety and beauty of 
his language ' when he spoke in French or Italian. He 
was at this time learning English, which he never mastered 
so completely as the various Latin tongues. ' Although,' 
says the same American, ' I had heard men speak eloquently 
and impressively before, . . . Garibaldi raised my mind 
and impressed my heart in a manner altogether new, 
surprising and indescribable.' 1 

But, grateful though he was to the Meuccis and his other 
friends, he was secretly unhappy and yearning to be once 
more on the ocean. ' One day,' he writes, — 

' tired of making candles, and perhaps driven by my natural 
and habitual restlessness, I left the house with the intention of 
changing my trade. I remembered that I had been a sailor 3 

* Century, June 1907, 174-184. Mem. 264-266. Mario, 206, 207, note. 



i6 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

I knew a few words of Englisfi, and I went down to the Staten 
Island docks, where I saw some coasting vessels loading and 
unloading. I approached the nearest, and asked to be taken 
on board as a common sailor. The men I saw on the ship 
scarcely paid any attention to me, and continued their work. 
I went to the second and did the same, with the same result. 
Finally, I went to a third, where they were busy unloading, 
and asked to be allowed to help in the work. I was told they 
did not want me. " But I don't want to be paid," I insisted. 
No reply. " I want to work to warm myself." No use, 
I was deeply mortified. 

* I retired, thinking of the day when I had the honour to 
command the fleet of Monte Video, and its warlike and glorious 
army. What did all that serve me now ? I was not wanted. 
I got the better of my mortification, and returned to work at 
the tallow factory. Fortunately, I had not made known my 
intention to the excellent Meucci, and so the affront and dis- 
appointment, being my own secret, were less bitter.' i 

At length his merchant friend Carpanetto, of Genoa, 
came over to New York, and some time in 1851 carried him 
off on a business tour to Central America. There he fell ill 
of marsh fever, and was with difficulty nursed back to life 
by the devoted care of Carpanetto and some Italians of 
Panama. He then travelled along the Pacific coast to 
Lima in an English ship, recovering his health on board, 
and contrasting the scenery of the Andes with the Alpine 
and Apennine shores of his own Liguria. He was warmly 
welcomed by the Italians of the South American ports, 
who, occupying more important industrial positions than 
those of New York, were better able to help their famous 
compatriot. At Lima, Pietro Denegri gave him command 
of an old sailing ship called the Carmen, bound with a cargo 
for China. It was a year's voyage there and back, and he 
wished for nothing better, until Italy again drew her sword 
in earnest. Meanwhile, he would listen to no rumours of the 
useless revolts which the Mazzinians constantly attempted 
to promote. ' Many see Italian risings every day,' he 
wrote from Lima on his return from the voyage ; ' I see 

* Mem. 265, 266. 



VOYAGE TO CHINA 17 

nothing and remain a sailor.' 1 In the life of the sea he 
found the best preparation for the great war, when at last 
it should come. He wished that all the other exiles would 
join him. ' A man,' he said, 

' must either be a slave or let himself be ruined, or live peace- 
ably in England. Settling in America is even worse : for in 
that case all is over ; that is a land in which a man forgets 
his native country. He acquires a new home and different 
interests. . . . What could be better than my plan ? The 
whole emigration assembled round a few masts, and traversing 
the ocean, hardened by a rough sailor's life in a struggle with 
the elements and danger ; that would be a floating emigration, 
unapproachable and independent, and ever ready to land on 
any shore.' 2 

The year's voyage, which began from Callao on January 
10, 1852, was prosperous and uneventful. Garibaldi was 
happier at sea than he would have been anywhere else, but 
there too he was pursued by memory, and by a fear that was 
worse than memory itself. 

' What shall I say to you of my wandering life, my dear 
Vecchi ? ' he wrote next year. ' I thought distance could 
diminish the bitterness of the soul, but unfortunately it is not 
true, and I have led a sufficiently unhappy life, agitated and 
embittered by memory. Yes, I am athirst for the emancipa- 
tion of our country, and you may be sure that this wretched life 
of mine, though sadly the worse for wear, would be again honour- 
ably dedicated to so holy a cause. But the Italians of to-day 
think of the belly, not of the soul, and I am terrified at the likely 
prospect of never again wielding sword or musket for Italy.' ^ 

This worst of all terrors came not unnaturally to a man of 
forty-six, troubled as he now so often was by old wounds and 
disease, the scars of his conflict with man and nature in two 
hemispheres ; the fear haunted him in the night watches 
on the broad Pacific. There, too, he was visited by a strange 
dream — of the women of Nice bearing his mother to the 

' Ciampoli, 68, 69. Mem. 270. Guerzoni, i. 397. 

2 Rodenberg, 1. 214, 215. Athenaeum, April 27, 1861, 568. 

3 Ciampoli, 70, omits a line and so makes nonsense of this fine letter, 
but see the real text in Jack La Bolina, 96, 

c 



i8 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

grave — which, as he declares, came to him on the very day 
when she died far off on the other side of the world of 
waters. 1 

Having reached the China ports, and done business for 
his employers in Hong Kong and Canton, he returned by way 
of South Australasia. Passing close by Tasmania, he put 
into one of the Hunter Islands to water. It was a lonely 
and beautiful spot, and as the Italians landed, a cloud of 
birds rose from the primeval vegetation, amid the murmur 
of the clear flowing streams. The scene chanced to make 
on the mind of this Ulysses, who had seen so many wild and 
beautiful places all the world over, a profound and permanent 
impression, such as the daffodils " along the margin of a 
bay ' once made on Wordsworth. Again and again in after 
life, in moments of political irritation and despair, he 
thought of the lonely island with a sudden joy. His atten- 
tion and sympathy were also attracted by a comfortably 
fitted house and other traces of recent settlement, which 
an English family had made and since abandoned, owing 
to the death of their comrade, as the carving on a solitary 
tomb bore witness. It is not improbable that the memory 
of this scene, and the idea of setting up such another home 
for himself and his children on such another desert island, 
helped soon afterwards to draw Garibaldi to Caprera.^ 

Indeed, he was now, though he did not know it, home- 
ward bound for Italy by slow stages. Shortly after his 
return to Callao and Lima in January 1853, he was sent off 
on another voyage, rounded Cape Horn, and so reached 
New York in the autumn.^ Early in January 1854 he 
sailed for Europe as captain of the Commonwealth, three 
masts, 1,200 tons, with a cargo for Newcastle, whence she 

^ Guerzoni, i. 398, 399 for Garibaldi's own account. Also Basso, his 
devoted friend and secretary, who met him in New York and remained 
with him for twenty years, and who was with him on board the Carmen, 
told the Marios of the extraordinary effect this dream produced on Gari- 
baldi ; Mario, Supp. 120. It was dreamt on March 19, 1852. 

2 Mem. 272-274. Guerzoni, i. 399, and Canzio MS. 

^ Canzio MS. Mem. 2j^, 275. Ciampoli, 68, 69. Cf. Jack La Boltna, 
95-97 for testimony by Denegrl, Garibaldi's employer, as to his great 
merits as captain of the Carmen, 



MAZZINI IN ENGLAND 19 

was to carry coals to Genoa. The crew consisted of a dozen 
Italian and a smaller number ot English-speaking sailors. 
By the middle of February they were in London docks, and 
Garibaldi and Mazzini met once more.i 

In all the long life which Mazzini devoted so wholly to 
the service of Italy and of mankind, there were only four 
months during which he found himself ' drest in a little 
brief authority,' and they ended with the fall of the Roman 
Repubhc in July 1849. The ex-triumvir returned to the 
dingy lodging houses of London, and resumed, until his 
death in 1872, the part which was his as by right, — to suffer, 
to meditate, to exhort, and for ever to conspire. 

In the summer of 1852, the very year in which Garibaldi 
in mid-Pacific had been troubled by the dream of his mother's 
death in Nice, Mazzini's mother also died. It was a terrible 
blow. He had failed in the ambition of his ' individual 
life,' ' to see her in the joy of triumph, when Italy was free.' 
' I have now,' he wrote, * no mother on earth except my 
country, and I shall be true to her as my mother has been 
true to me.' For the rest, his English friends, men and 
women like the Ashursts, the Taylors, the Mallesons, the 
Shaens, the Stansfelds, gave him an untiring devotion and 
all the little that henceforward he had of that happiness 
which he thought it man's duty to despise. The natural 
fitness of this tender, pure, and withal quietly humorous 
man, for the endearing trivialities of home life, which he had 
deliberately foregone at the call of a still higher duty, 
ensured his welcome at many an English fireside, not only 
as a teacher who raised life high but as a friend who made 
it cheerful and kind.^ 

He had need of such an atmosphere to protect him a 
little from the miseries of his ever- frustrated mission. 
In 1852-53 the conspiracy of Mantua and the abortive revolt 
of Milan, followed by the cruel floggings and executions 
with which the Austrians as usual avenged themselves, were 

.* Canzio MS. Cihmpoli, 71. Risorg., anno i. 3-4, pp. 683-4. 
^ King's Mazzini, 144. Mazzini, ix. pp. Ixv-lxxii. 



20 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

laid at Mazzini's door by the exasperated Liberals of Europe', 
who cried out that the time for hopeless insurrections on the 
principle of the ' popular initiative ' had now gone by. 
The horror inspired by what men regarded as a vain waste 
of noble lives was successfully exploited by Cavour and the 
Moderates of Piedmont to draw over the youth of Italy 
from the banner of Mazzini and the Republic to the banner of 
Victor Emmanuel and the monarchy. That this political 
concentration was necessary as the next step towards 
national unity cannot be doubted, but it is another ques- 
tion whether the Moderates were wholly in the right when 
they condemned the Mantuan and Milanese movements 
as altogether opposed to the interests of the cause. As 
revolutionary movements they had no chance of success, 
and ought not to have been undertaken. But as the pro- 
test of martyrs they had a great effect in rendering Austria 
odious in England and in France, and in keeping the hatred 
of the foreign soldiery hot in the minds of the very men 
who cried out against the rashness of the victims and 
the criminality of Mazzini as the supposed instigator.i The 
workmen who were hanged from the red brick walls of the 
magnificent Castello of Milan, in sight of the spot where 
Garibaldi's statue rides to-day ; the priest and the band of 
gentlemen who, after suffering horrors in the old fortress 
of Mantua, stood at last under the gallows outside the town 
walls and gazed undismayed over the beautiful and melan- 
choly landscape, across Virgil's marsh and the enslaved 
plains, to the heights of Monte Baldo and the towering Alps 
of Verona — these men did not die in vain. 

Indeed, the Government of Piedmont well knew how to use 
the story of these tragedies against Austria no less than 
against Mazzini. 

' Last night,' wrote Greville ^ in his London diary for March i, 

' This Is the opinion of such a strongly Cavourlan and monarchist 
historian as Signer Luzio himself, e.g., Luzio, Mazzini, 55, 56, and Luzio, 
Belfiore, 293-294. For the degree of Mazzini's responsibility for the 
Milanese movement see Mazzini, ix. pp. xliii-lxiii., De Cristoforis, chap. vi. 

" Greville, vli, 47, 48. 



AUSTRIA AND PUBLIC OPINION 21 

1853, ' the Marquis Massimo d'Azeglio came here. He was 
Prime Minister in Piedmont till replaced by Count Cavour, and 
is come to join his nephew, who is minister here. He is a tall, 
thin, dignified looking man, with very pleasing manners. He 
gave us a shocking account of the conduct of the Austrians at 
Milan in consequence of the recent outbreak. Their tyranny 
and cruelty have been more like the deeds in the Middle Ages 
than those in our own time. . . . They have thrown away a 
good opportunity of improving their own moral status in Italy, 
and completely played the game of their enemies by increasing 
the national hatred against them tenfold. If ever France finds it 
her interest to go to war, Italy will be her mark, for she will now 
find the whole population in her favour, and would be joined 
by Sardinia . . . nor would it be possible for this country to 
support Austria in a way to secure that Italian dominion which 
she has so monstrously abused.' 

In this strangely correct prophecy, made by a man who 
was as far removed from a Mazzinian as a typical English- 
man can possibly be, we see the connection between the 
tragic events of Mantua and Milan in 1852-53, and the 
battles of Magenta and Solferino in 1859. And yet, perhaps, 
the most important effect of those events was to diminish 
the prestige of Mazzini, and to hasten the process by which 
the youth of Italy withdrew from him their allegiance 
and transferred it to Victor Emmanuel, to Cavour and to 
Garibaldi. 

And so when, in February 1854, the captain of the 
Commonwealth landed in London docks and went to find 
his old friend and teacher, Mazzini was in fact face to face 
with one of his supplanters. But his only thought was at 
once to use him and all that his name was worth to initiate 
another revolt. 

' Garibaldi,' he wrote on February 16, ' is here ; ready to 
act. Garibaldi's name is all powerful among the Neapolitans, 
since the Roman affair of Velletri.i I want to send him to 

' For battle of Velletrl, 1849, see Trevelyan's Car. Rome, chap. viil. 



22 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

Sicily, where they are ripe for insurrection and wishing for him 
as a leader.' ' 

It appears, however, that Garibaldi's ' readiness ' to go to 
Sicily was entirely conditional on the Sicilians first rising 
themselves and catling on him to come over and help an 
insurrection already afoot,' These were the conditions on 
which he absolutely insisted, both now and on every later 
occasion when the scheme was proposed, until its successful 
execution in i860. Indeed, in August 1854, only six months 
after this interview with Mazzini, he wrote to the Italian 
papers to warn the youth of his country against ' rash 
enterprises ' initiated ' by men deceiving and deceived, 
which only serve to ruin or at least discredit our cause.' ^ 

But whatever really passed between the two men with 
regard to Sicily, the most significant word spoken by 
Garibaldi to Mazzini at this time in London was that 
related for us by an ear-witness, Alexander Herzen. It 
would not, said Garibaldi, be well to offend the Piedmontese 
Government, for the main object now was to shake off the 
Austrian yoke, and he doubted greatly whether Italy was as 
ripe for an United Republic as Mazzini supposed.* 

Garibaldi spent more than a month in London, making 
some close friendships, and forming those strong ties of 
mutual attachment which ever afterwards bound him to 
our country.^ 

The disinterested affection for Italy and her champions 
that grew up in our island during the fifties and sixties, 
left a mark on the literary, political, and social life of 
Great Britain. Apart from the unrivaUed appeal to the 
imagination which Italy of all lands can make ; apart 
from the knowledge, then so prevalent among educated 

King's Mazzini, 355 (from the Taylor MSS.). 

* ' Nel marzo 1854 Mazzini avvertl Fabrizi che Garibaldi sarebbe 
pronto a capitanare una spedizione in Sicilia, se ivi fosse iniziata I'insur- 
rezione ed egli fosse chiamato,' Mario's Mazzini, 367. King's Mazzini, 173. 

^ Ci^mpoli, 71, 72. 

* Rodenberg, i. 214, 215. Athenaeum, Ap. 27, 1861, p. 568. 

* Mario Supp. 125. 



ENGLAND AND ITALY 23 

Britons, of her history, her hterature ancient and modern, 
her art, her music, her cities and her landscape ; apart 
from the attractive personal qualities of her champions, 
who captivated the Enghsh as no other body of refugees 
ever did before or since, there were other special causes 
for that Itahan enthusiasm of our grandfathers, which 
now began to be an important factor in Garibaldi's career. 

In the first place, the bulk of the propertied classes, 
having secured their position against a narrow oligarchy by 
the Reform Bill of 1832, and being no longer alarmed, after 
the failure of Chartism, by any serious pressure from below, 
could afford to indulge in a good deal of speculative Liberal- 
ism. Social reform had not yet become a leading question, 
and Liberal sentiment ran largely into anti-clerical and 
anti-despotic feeling, for which it found more vent upon the 
Continent than at home. Domestic politics were in an 
unusually stagnant condition, and many pubhc spirited 
men had therefore ample leisure to found the society of 
' Friends of Italy ' in 1851, and to carry on the work of its 
propaganda for many years with ever increasing success. 
The most exciting alleviation of the dullness of Enghsh 
politics was the ' no-Popery ' cry, which, how^ever futile 
and misdirected as an influence on our home affairs, led a 
large section of the religious world, not usually very prone 
to revolutionary sympathies, to take a generous interest 
in the cause of freedom in Italy. Lord Shaftesbury himself 
lived to be one of Garibaldi's ardent admirers. The fact 
that the Irish w^ere on the side of the Pope, and occasionally 
disturbed the pro-Italian meetings, dispelled the last doubts 
of the average Englishman as to the propriety of the 
movement. 

Furthermore, when the revolutionary governments of 1848 
were replaced in one country after another by absolutism 
and military rule, it was very natural that we should begin 
to pride ourselves on the unique position occupied by Britain 
as the only free country among the great powers of Europe. 
We were to the whole Continent what Piedmont was to 
Italy. Because we harboured the exiles, and held up in 



24 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

that night of time the beacon hght of an ordered freedom, 
we were hated whole-heartedly at St. Petersburg, Vienna, 
Berlin, Naples and Rome, and half-heartedly and with 
secret envy by the would-be Liberal who sat discontented 
in the Tuileries under the protection of priests and bayonets.^ 
We were soon made aware of this ill feeling and its cause. 
Our national pride thereupon took fire for freedom, and 
under Palmerston's spirited lead those forces and passions 
which in a later generation were termed ' Jingo,' were 
enhsted on behalf of Continental Liberahsm. When the 
Austrian General Haynau unwisely came over to England 
in 1850, a personal assault was made upon him in Barclay's 
brewery on the ground of his barbarity to women and to 
better men than himself, and it is noticeable that not 
only Punch, but the Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, 
applauded the draymen's undiplomatic zeal.^ The Crimean 
war was regarded by many as an attack upon the arch-despot 
who had aided Austria in 1849. Not only the Daily News 
and the Liberal press proper, but Palmerston's organ, the 
Morning Post, were strongly pro-Italian. The Times indeed 
remained Austrian until well on in the year 1859, when it 
became evident that the Italian cause might not improbably 
succeed. 

While many of the propertied classes were thus growing 
hostile to the Italian tyrannies, the only part of the working 
class which then had any political consciousness was deeply 
sympathetic with Mazzini and Garibaldi as the champions 
of European democracy.^ This feeUng was specially strong 
on Tyneside, whence Joe Co wen sent out Mazzini' s pro- 
scribed literature to Italy concealed in the famous bricks 
which he manufactured at Blaydon. He brought down 
distinguished exiles to instruct industrial Northumberland. 
Here Father Gavazzi^ lectured to audiences wholly un- 
famihar with the Italian tongue, who sat enchanted by his 
Demosthenic gestures and delivery in a style unknown in 

• Greville, vii. 49-52. ^ Ashley's Palmerston, i. 240, 
^ Holyoake, i. 210, 211. 

* For Father Gavazzi, see Trevelyan's Gar. Rome. 76, 77, 



GARIBALDI AT NEWCASTLE 25 

Northern Europe, and applauded loudly when he was under- 
stood to be saying something against the Pope, or when they 
caught the words ' Mazzini ' or ' Garibaldi.' When, there- 
fore, the men of Newcastle learnt that Garibaldi was coming 
in his ship to fetch away a cargo of their coals, they bought 
him a sword of honour, and since, according to his custom at 
this period, he declined to attend a pubhc reception in the 
town, they sent a deputation on board the Commonwealth 
to present it to him as he stood among his little crew. The 
miners tramping about the deck in heavy hob-nailed boots 
amused the Italian sailors. 

' The sword,' said Cowen in presenting it, ' is purchased 
by the pennies of some hundreds of working men, contributed 
not only voluntarily but with enthusiasm, and each penny 
represents a heart which beats true to European freedom.' 

Garibaldi repHed in a carefully prepared English speech: — 

' One of the people — a workman like yourselves — I value 
very highly these expressions of your esteem, the more so because 
you testify thereby your sympathy with my poor, oppressed 
and down-trodden country. . . . Italy will one day be a nation, 
and its free citizens will know how to acknowledge all the kind- 
ness shown her exiled sons in the days of her darkest troubles.' 1 

It is doubtful whether this brotherly reception of the pro- 
scribed champion of a ruined cause and an enslaved country 
by the working men of Tyneside and their middle-class 
leaders is not as much to the credit of England as the por- 
tentous uprising of the whole nation to welcome the same 
man in 1864, as the world-renowned liberator of Sicily and 
Naples. 

I Cowen, 8-16. Risorg., anno i. 3-4, p. 685. There is an oil portrait 
of Garibaldi taken on board the Commonwealth during this visit ; it is 
now in the Free Library, North Shields. Mr. Herbert Craig has kindly 
sent me a photograph of it. It represents him in a frock coat buttoned 
up to the neck, such as he wears in the frontispiece to this book. For 
the facts here narrated about Tyneside, I rely on letters and oral informa- 
tion from Dr. Spence Watson, Sir J. Wilson Swan, Mrs. Boyce, and 
others. 



CHAPTER II 

CAVOUR AND THE CONVALESCENCE OF ITALY. — GARIBALDI 

AT CAPRERA 

Italy, what of the night ? — 

Ah, child, child, it is long ! 

Moonbeam and starbeam and song 
Leave it dumb now and darls. 
Yet I perceive on the height 

Eastward, not now very far, 
A song too loud for the lark, 

A light too strong for a star. 

Swinburne. — Songs before Sunrise : 
A watch in the night. 

In the spring of 1854 Garibaldi returned to Italy and 
settled down to live at Nice, apparently without any com- 
munication with the Government of Piedmont. The fear 
of Austria lay less heavy on the land than five years 
before, when it had been judged dangerous to harbour the 
revolutionary chief. In those evil days, after an obscurantist 
regime lasting for a whole generation (1815-48) followed 
by a brief period of sudden change at home and ill- 
conducted and disastrous war on the frontiers, the ship of 
State had almost foundered. Destitute of many of the 
accessories of modern life, with ruined finances and an 
ill-organised and defeated army, threatened by a reactionary 
priesthood on the one side, and an excitable and not too 
loyal democratic party on the other, the Liberal monarchy 
had just escaped destruction, thanks to the character of the 
young King Victor Emmanuel and the services first of 
the honest D'Azeglio, and then of the great Cavour.i This 

1 The best brief life of Cavour is that by Countess Martinengo 
Cesaresco in the Foreign Statesmen Series (Macmillan). There is not yet an 
authoritative biography, nor have all his papers yet seen the light, though 
the collection in Chiala is most valuable. De la Rive's life is that of a 
close friend and acute contemporary observer. 

26 





CAVOUR. 

(From a contemporary print in Bianchi's Cavotir.'i 



CAVOUR 27 

marvellous man, hated alike by Democrats and Reaction- 
aries, and disliked personally by the king, had imposed 
himself on king and country, by astute Parhamentary 
manoeuvres and aUiances, and by the display of a 
genius for government which both king and country had 
the sense to value at its incalculable worth. Like our own 
WiUiam III in his superiority to the men and parties who 
disliked him, but could not do without him, he too was not 
invariably scrupulous in the means by which he baffled 
the yet more unscrupulous champions of clerical and 
despotic predominance in Europe. 

Cavour had trained himself— for no one was his teacher— 
in what was then the British school of politics. Passionate 
Itahan as he was, his political and economic ideas were 
based on acute observations made in England, and on a 
close study of the work of Grey and Peel. Beheving in 
civil and rehgious freedom to a degree unusual among 
Continental statesmen of any party, he regarded freely 
elected ParUaments as the essential organ of government, 
and force as no remedy, except to expel the stranger and the 
despot. Any fool, he said, could govern by martial law. 
According to him, it was the business of a statesman to 
govern by Parliament, not indeed obeying every behest of 
ignorant partisans and corrupt interests, but persuading the 
country and the Chamber to take the right course, by weight 
of the authority due to wisdom, knowledge and experience. 
This ideal, seldom realised in any country, was the actual 
method by which Cavour governed Piedmont in the fifties. 
If he had hved to govern all Italy in the same manner during 
the sixties and seventies, the country which he created 
would have avoided many misfortunes besides those oi 
Custoza, Lissa, and Mentana. And if then the example oi 
Cavour had been preferred to that of Bismarck as the model 
for the patriots and statesmen of modern Europe, the whole 
world would now be a better place than it is. 

Garibaldi, having settled down to live under the govern- 
ment of this man, soon became aware of the stir of new 
hopes and energies in the changed country to which he had 



28 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

returned. The life of Piedmont was, during this decade, 
enriched by many thousands of exiles from the other States 
of Italy, the very pick of the land which they were all 
sworn to make into a nation. As soldiers, statesmen, jour- 
nalists, business men, they served Piedmont as the microcosm 
of the Italy to be. One section of these exiles, still clinging 
to the Republican faith, and only half pleased with the 
Government that sheltered them, was for ever striving to 
stir up Mazzinian revolts in different parts of the peninsula. 
But the other section, enthusiastic supporters of Cavour, 
ready to wait for his initiative, and unwilling to compromise 
his deep-laid plans by any rashness on their part, had 
accepted the monarchy as the only way to national unity and 
independence. This party was increasing its numbers by 
conversion from the Republicans, and to this party Garibaldi 
attached himself. 

When he first returned to Italy the two questions of the 
day in Piedmont were the suppression of the monasteries, 
and the participation of the country in the Crimean war, 
both of which he strongly approved. The first was naturally 
popular with the Liberal ^ parties of almost every shade, 
though fiercely contested by the influence of the priests and 
reactionaries, still very strong among the peasantry especi- 
ally of the Savoyard mountains. The Crimean expedition, 
on the other hand, had few hearty supporters. It was 
generally regarded as a folly of Cavour's, a waste of those 
slender resources of Piedmont which ought to be carefully 
husbanded for the coming struggle with Austria. But 
Garibaldi was from the first almost as much delighted by 
the expedition to the Crimea as by the suppression of the 
monasteries. The suppression was the first thing that gave 
him confidence in Cavour. Of the expedition he said, that 

' Italy should lose no opportunity to unfurl the Italian flag 

' I take this opportunity of explaining my use of the word ' Liberal ' 
in this book. I use it in the sense In which it was used in the Italy of 
that day, to cover all the parties, Republican or Monarchist, Federalist 
or Unitarian, who desired to see changes in the various Italian States in 
the direction of liberty from autocratic government. 



GARIBALDI'S RETURN TO PIEDMONT 29 

on any battle-field that should recall to the remembrance of 
European nations the fact of her political existence.' 1 

Probably he did not understand the further and more definite 
object of Cavour, which was to prepare the way for an 
aUiance with Napoleon III, or with England, or with both, 
against the Austrian power in Italy. 

But however much Garibaldi approved of the war, 
he could take no part in it, for the French would 
have considered his presence at the front in any capacity 
as an insult to themselves. The 17,000 Italians whom 
General La Marmora led to the Crimea had to wait long 
for an opportunity of proving to Europe anything to the 
advantage of their country, except that their commissariat 
was better organised than that of their British allies. At 
length, in August 1855, they were taken into battle on the 
banks of the Tchernaya, and behaved well. At the news 
of the battle, public opinion in Italy caught fire, and Cavour's 
Crimean policy was at length endorsed by the nation. 

Garibaldi, meanwhile, used the immense weight of his 
influence with the Democratic party to discourage prema- 
ture movements of insurrection, by a strongly worded 
letter to the papers. 2 This was the more creditable on his 
part because he himself had the best of all reasons to be 
impatient : — 

' I do not enjoy good health,' he wrote to his old friend 
Cuneo, in January 1855, ' and I wish I might use what is left 
of me on behalf of my country before I am quite broken up.' ^ 

Meanwhile he did his best to keep himself in training. 
Rising at dawn, he roamed the mountains behind Nice for 
four hours every morning, with his now inseparable friend 
and secretary Basso, in pursuit of partridges. The middle 
of the day he spent in teaching his younger boy to write, 
tracing out the large letters in pencil with his own hand for 

1 Mario Supp. 132-134. Mario, 210. Jessie White (Mario) saw 
much of Garibaldi at Nice during this period. 

2 Ciampoli, 71, 72, letter to Italia del Popolo, August 4, 1854. 
8 Ciampoli, 72. 



30 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

Ricciotti to cover them over in ink, and in visiting his 
daughter Teresita, who had been adopted by his friends the 
Deideris. The evenings he spent at a house rented by an 
Enghsh widow lady to whom he was for a time engaged.^ 
He appeared to Jessie White, one of our countrywomen 
who was of the party, as ' a quiet, thoughtful, unpretending 
gentleman,' very ready to make friends, but subject to 
childish gusts of anger that passed away often with laughter, 
and always without bitterness, as when the ladies mimicked 
the peculiarities of his speech, or failed to learn to shoot 
against the coming of the holy war, or praised Mazzini as 
the first man of the age. This was when he was ashore ; 
but he often went on short cruises in command of the screw 
steamer Salvatore to Marseilles, Civitavecchia, and else- 
where, taking his elder son Menotti as cabin boy.^ 

In the autumn of 1855 his brother Felice died, leaving 
him an inheritance of 1,400/. (35,000 lire) which, together 
with a smaller sum saved out of his own earnings as a sea- 
captain, placed him in a position to alter his mode of life. 
Short of another war of liberation, the thing he most desired 
was, as he told his friends, to end his days far from the 
world, in communion with the grand solitudes of nature. 
He remembered the rocky coast and islands of northern 
Sardinia, and in December 1855 he sailed for that region, 
intending, as he wrote, 

' to traverse the Gallura, where I think it will be possible 
to choose a place on which to make a settlement, to pass 
some of the spring months there or perhaps to stay there 
permanently if I find a suitable place.' 

The point in the Gallura which he had in view was the 
Capo Testa (Santa Teresa di Gallura), a headland on the 
coast of Sardinia running out into the Straits of Bonifacio. 
But when he touched at the Island of Maddalena, where 
he had spent a month in 1849,^ some old naval friends of 

' Mario Supp. 125. Mario Vita, i. 143-145, 148. 

^ Mario Supp. 132. Mario Vita, i. 143-145. Jack La Bolina, 98-101, 

' See p. 12 above. 



CAPRERA 31 

his in that port, particularly the Susini family, anxious to 
have him yet nearer to themselves, warned him that if 
he settled on the solitary Capo Testa he might easily be 
carried off or murdered by an expedition fitted out in 
French Corsica. It was not easy to frighten Garibaldi, 
but he believed Napoleon, ' the man of December,' capable 
of any crime, and perhaps also he saw greater convenience 
as well as safety in a closer neighbourhood to Maddalena. 
Before the end of the month he had agreed to buy the 
northern half of the island of Caprera for about £360.^ 

His new home was indeed admirably suited to all his 
purposes, and to the purposes of Italy in him. Stationed 
within an hour's row of the httle port of Maddalena, where 
the ships of the Piedmontese navy often touched,^ ' the 
hermit of Caprera ' was never in the way and never out of 
the way from the point of view of Victor Emmanuel's 
Government. He could be fetched off the island at two 
days' notice if his sword was wanted. If peace was made 
and he was angry, he could retire there and work off his 
feelings in piling up the granite rocks into rough walls, 
or taking what he called his ' spade bath.' ' Safely back 
on Caprera, he was less in the mood to listen to politicians 
and makebates, nor did they find it easy to follow him to 
his lair, since the ordinary steamers crossed from Genoa 
to Maddalena only once in a month. ^ Thus he preserved 
his dignity by a picturesque seclusion, and his vigour by 
a healthy and hardy existence. In the great years 1859 and 
i860 Caprera proved, as we shaU see in the course of this 

' Falconi, 24-31. Mario, Vita, i. 144. L'Isola, 32, 33. Guerzoni, 
i. 401. Canzio MS., Convenzione passata tra me ed i propfietari della 
Caprera il 29 December 1855. 

^ Maddalena had been the scene of young Bonaparte's first defeat in 
1792. Later, it was a favourite haunt of Nelson, who saw in it a future 
naval base, and coveted it as such for Britain. In recent times it has 
been put to that use by the Italian Government, and already when 
Garibaldi came to Caprera it was inhabited by a seafaring population, 
who supplied the Piedmontese navy with men and officers. Mahan's 
Nelson, Index. O. Browning's Boyhood and Youth of Napoleon, 199-202. 

* ' Bagno della zappa.' Cidmpoli, 83. 

* Melena, 21 note. Melena, 1 861, p. 189. 



32 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

book, an institution of no small value to Italy. And even 
after i860, when during the last twenty years of his life he 
regarded himself overmuch as a privileged being, endowed 
with the right of levying war on his own account, Caprera 
saved him from making more numerous and worse mistakes. 
The island, which is roughly five miles in length and 
fifteen in circumference, appears to-day almost ^ exactly 
as Garibaldi left it, that is to say very much what it has 
been from the beginning of time. And so long as the State, 
whose property it now is, preserves it free from the pro- 
fanation alike of modern improvements and of national 
monuments, it will, in the rugged grandeur of its scenery, 
and in its untouched record of what has been, remain in 
itself the noblest of all monuments of the Italian Risorgimento. 
From on board ships working southward along the coast 
of Corsica from Genoa and Leghorn, or eastward through 
the Straits of Bonifacio, Caprera and its white house are 
seen from a considerable distance out to sea. From the 
base of the rock precipice that crests the top of the island, 
the ground on the western side inclines somewhat less steeply 
to the shore, and there, shining white on the moorside, a 
quarter of a mile from the water's edge, appears the long 
flat roofed house of one storey, built by the labour of Gari- 
baldi and his friends. It is the only object that catches 
the eye, amid the grey rocks and dark green plants that 
share the island between them. Caprera is still, and may 
it for ever remain, a desert moorland, only to be traversed 
on foot by pushing through the odoriferous brushwood 
and leaping or climbing from one granite crag to another. 
Every cranny in the rock where earth has lodged, every 
space between the tumbled boulders, is the cradle of wild 
vegetation — orchid, lavender, red saxifrage, the stately 
asphodel, the spurge with its yellow flower, the tamarisk 
and the evergreen lentisk with its smooth leaves. But 
more than all else the cistus, raising its white rock-rose to 
the traveller's knee, dehghtfully impedes his progress over 

^ There is now a long bridge joining Caprera to the nearest point of the 
island of Maddalena. A road has also been made on Caprera. 




GARIBALDI AT CAPRERA. 
(From an engraving in the British Museum.' 



CAPRERA 33 

the greater part of the island. Only here and there are 
miniature lawns of grass, breaking the thickness of the jungle. 
The trees are few, stunted and hidden among the rocks. 
Indeed, swept as it is by a peculiarly fierce and persistent 
wind, Caprera has in it more than a touch of the feeling 
of our northern landscape. Even on a fine day, when the 
wind has dropped a little, when the sun brings out the 
odours of all the aromatic plants together, and the fraction 
of Mediterranean waters enclosed by the little archipelago 
swells gently in its granite basin — even then, if cistus and 
lentisk could be changed into purple heath, the scene would 
pass for one of those inlets on the western coast of Scotland, 
where, amid shelving moorland and jagged heaps of rock 

' The great sea- water finds its way,' 

Such an island is not altogether characteristic of Italy, but 
it is altogether characteristic of Garibaldi. i 

When, in the spring of 1856, Garibaldi came to occupy 
his newly-purchased property, he was not quite the only 
inhabitant of Caprera. During the period of the Marl- 
borough wars, a bandit named Ferraciolo, pursued by justice, 
took refuge with his wife and child on the island, which they 
found completely deserted, though there are traces of habi- 
tation in Roman or pre-Roman times. For a hundred and 
fifty years, generation after generation of this wild man's 
descendants perpetuated their race on this lonely spot, 
living as goat-herds and smugglers in the hut which their 
ancestor had built of stones and mud. In Garibaldi's time 
the Ferraciolo of the day still continued to dwell there 
with his family, on excellent terms with the new-comer. 
Half a dozen other herdsmen kept their goats on Caprera, 
one or two housing there themselves in huts or in natural 
grottoes, others on Maddalena. Not many years before 
Garibaldi's arrival, an eccentric and ill-conditioned English- 
man named Collins, together with his rich wife whose 
attachment to him was considered at once romantic, 
touching and inexplicable, had bought a large part of 

1 See Appendix A, ' Caprera,' i., below, 

D 



34 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

Caprera from the Piedmontese Government, and built a 
house upon it, though they lived chiefly in Maddalena. 
After Garibaldi had bought from them and from the 
Ferracioli the northern and more mountainous half of 
Caprera, his relations with Mr. Collins became strained. 
The Enghshman's goats and pigs, wandering loose 
as of old through the brushwood, soon found out the 
general's potato and cabbage patch ; the cows of the new 
settler retaliated, and international complications ensued. 
Bjiit Garibaldi solved the problem by turning out with his 
friends, and building a rough stone wall right across the 
island from west to east, along the border of his property. 
About 1859 Mr. Colhns died, and his faithful but more 
sociable widow made friends with the Itahan colony. In 
1864 a nimiber of Garibaldi's wealthy admirers in England 
purchased the southern half of the island from Mrs. Collins, 
and presented it to the hero of their choice. But the 
visitor struggling through the brushwood of Caprera still 
comes unexpectedly upon the now useless wall half hidden 
by the tall vegetation. 1 

Wall building and house building were indeed the chief 
occupations of Garibaldi's early years on the island. His 
first habitation, in 1856, was a tent, which the winds often 
carried away at night. He and his stalwart son Menotti 
lived under canvas until they had run up the still existing 
wooden pent-house in which to receive his daughter Teresita. 
From that new base of operations they then proceeded, 
with the help of Basso and some other friends, to build the 
pretty, flat-roofed mansion in the style of the architecture 
of Montevideo. The first part of it was habitable, after a 
fashion, by the end of 1857, but a second part was after- 
wards added. This second portion, finished in 1861, had 
an ill-fated upper story, which was taken down again five 
years later because it was not sufficiently solid to resist the 
winds of Caprera.3 

1 Conv. Canzio and Canzio MS. LMsola, 37-41. Caqnoni, 81, 89, 92. 
Melena, i86i,p. 234. Vecclii, 16, 25-28. SaccM's Visit, 13. Mistrali's Pell. 

2 See Appendix A., ' Caprera,' ii., below. 



CAPRERA 35 

Garibaldi was the first to attempt the cultivation of the 
island soil on any extensive scale. But even his cornfield, 
olive yard, and potato patch, picked out from among the 
stones, was the land of a crofter rather than of a farmer. 
He was first and foremost a shepherd and goat-herd, rearing 
a particularly fine breed of goats, which he imported from 
Malta to run loose among the rocks. The cows were each 
known by name, and were most tenderly treated. 

' He is as kind,' wrote Vecchi, ' to the brute creation as to 
man, and is so pained to see an animal struck that he never 
permits it in his presence. He takes a special delight in planting 
and cultivating useful vegetables, and is highly displeased if a 
plant be trodden on, or pulled up by mistake. ' i 

Garibaldi himself, in a curiously emotional description 
of his own gardening operations in Caprera, exclaims : 

' The soul of the poor plants was in communion with mine, 
as I know when, thrown back into this sea of misery, far away 
from them, I turn my thoughts back to them, and feel myself 
cheered and exalted.' 

He himself, the plants, and the butterfly that flits around 
them, are alike ' part of the soul of the universe, part of the 
infinite, part of God.' This thought, he tells us, ' raises 
him above miserable materialism.' 2 

The frugally furnished little house was often overflowing 
with guests, who gladly took part in the gardening, building 
and herding occupations of the day. 

' Here is liberty in all things,' writes Vecchi in 1861, * even 
to the cellar, although the General drinks nothing but water ; . . . 
for supper he has new milk. For the rest there are salted viands, 
with coffee, tea and milk at discretion. He helps his neighbours, 
beginning with the women, and invites his distant guests to take 
care of themselves. When he speaks to his daughter, he says 
" Teresa " in such a soft voice that it is impossible to imitate it. 
If he is in good spirits, he lights his cigar, and — excited by some 
name or deed which I allude to on purpose — he narrates, modestly 

' Vecchi, 8, II. Helena, 24, ^ CiUmpoli, 935, 936, 

D 2 



36 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

of himself, but with full meed of praise for others, the great feats 
of arms in America, or particulars of the more recent events in 
Lombardy, Sicily, and Naples. ... If he is oppressed by 
gloomy thoughts, he rises immediately from table, and walks 
out ; for he constantly suffers from the feeling of desolation, 
repeopling in thought the battlefield with fallen friends, and 
those who died for the noble cause for which he has ever drawn 
his sword.' 1 

One evening, as Vecchi narrates, the party in the house 
heard that a new-born lamb had been lost among the rocks. 
Long searches by lantern-light, guided by Garibaldi over the 
crags and through the brushwood, failed of success, both 
before and after supper. 

' It was nine o'clock and raining, and we were very tired, so 
we once more returned to the house, and went to bed. An 
hour afterwards we heard the sound of footsteps in the next 
room, and the house-door opened. . . . About midnight we 
were roused by a voice : it was the hero returning, joyfully 
carrying the lost lamb in his arms. He took the little creature 
to his bed, and lay down with it, giving it a bit of sponge dipped 
in milk to suck to keep it quiet, . . . and he spent the whole 
night caressing and feeding the foolish creature. ... At five 
in the morning we found him planting potatoes in the garden. 
We took our spades and began to work also.' ^ 

The qualities which endeared him to the simple souls 
who lived in his house on Caprera similarly won the hearts 
of the most critical and experienced judges of men in Italy 
and England. The fond simplicity of a child, the sensitive, 
tender humanity of a woman, the steady valour of a soldier, 
the good-heartedness and hardihood of a sailor, the imposing 
majesty of a king like Charlemagne, the brotherliness and 
universal sympathy of a democrat like Walt Whitman, the 
spiritual depth and fire of a poet, and an Olympian calm 
that was personal to himself— all plainly marked in his port 
and presence, his voice and his eyes — made him, not the 
greatest, but the unique figure of the age. That this 
rare creature had no head for administration or ' politics 

* Vecchi, 8, g. ^ Vecchi, 44, 45. 



CAPRERA 37 

need cause no surprise. That he had an instinctive genius 
for guerilla war was a singular piece of good fortune. Such 
another nature will never be bred in cities or by the typical 
life of modern times. It had been nurtured in the solitudes 
of the sea and of the Pampas, and was preserved intact by 
the life of Caprera. ' He loves solitude/ wrote Vecchi, 
' and the sea, itself a solitude, conducive to dreams and 
deep emotions.' ^ He used often to climb alone on to the 
rocky crest that crowns Caprera, and thence cast his eye 
on all sides over sea and mountain and moor : to the north, 
across the strait, he beheld the magnificent peaks of Corsica ; 
to the south, some of the lower Sardinian hills ; to the 
west, close below him, the group of uncultivated and rocky 
islands, and the lodge that he had built for himself in that 
wilderness. But to the east, where the granite crags 
sloped down from under his feet so ruggedly and steeply to 
the sea, that its murmur round their base was, even on calm 
days, audible on the summit, no attempt at human habita- 
tion had been made ; only the wild plants clung and trailed 
round the rocks, the eagle cried above his head, and the 
deep primeval quiet, undisturbed by man since the begin- 
ning of time, filled him here with the breath of liberty, 
the utter release from crowds and courts and officials and 
the whole scheme of modern life, to which he was always 
in mind and heart a stranger ; and this liberty would have 
sufiEiced him to the end of his days as he gazed over the 
unbroken surface of the sea, had he not in his mind's eye 
seen beyond the eastern horizon those still enslaved Italian 
shores. 3 

^ Vecchi, 7, " Appendix A, ' Caprera,' belcw. 



CHAPTER III 

THE NEAPOLITAN PRISONERS 

O miseri, o codardl 
Figliuoli avral, miseri eleggl. 

Leopardi, 

' Thou Shalt have children either cowards or unhappy ; choose then the 
unhappy.' — Leopardi. To his sister, on her marriage, 1821. 

It was the work of the French Revolution, and of the 
many national movements to which it gave rise in other 
countries, to destroy three distinct systems : — the feudal 
rights of the noble, the secular privileges of the church, 
and the absolute political power of the monarch. In no 
country of Europe was this triple revolution more lament- 
ably overdue than in Naples,^ where the tyranny, uncon- 
trolled through long centuries, of priest, of noble, and 
latterly of king, had left marks of devastation not only on 
the welfare of a few passing generations, but deep in the 
national character itself. In the Middle Ages, Campania 
and Apulia knew no burgher life such as that which rendered 
Lombardy and Tuscany the hearth of European civilisa- 
tion. Indeed, the feudal rights exercised by the nobles of 
Germany and France were inferior both in number and in 
kind to those acquired by the Norman adventurers of 
the eleventh century and their degenerate descendants over 
the hill towns of Southern Italy. In those miserable abodes 
of fear, poverty and superstition, the Dark Ages were pro- 
longed down to the end of the eighteenth century, and it 
was there that the character of the Neapolitan people was 

1 1 have left over to Chapter viii. what I wish to say about Sicily, the 
other half of that Bourbon State officially called the ' Kingdom of the 
Two Sicilies,' which was overthrown by Garibaldi in i86o. 



NEAPOLITAN HISTORY 39 

moulded. It is then scarcely matter for surprise that the 
mountain shepherds who might claim to be the descendants 
of the Samnites and the Bruttii displayed a half-animal 
savagery ; the tillers of the plain a dull helplessness ; and 
that the cities of the coast, once the seat of Hellenic civilisa- 
tion, had developed the vices of the Graeculus esuriens into 
the proverbial qualities of the ' Lazzaroni.' 1 

Then suddenly came the armed inrush of the French 
Revolution, sworn to ' shake the dead from living man.' 
The Napoleonic kings, Joseph Bonaparte and Joachim 
Murat, abolished the feudal system with a completeness 
characteristic of that epoch of reform, but with an 
equitable consideration for all parties that secured the 
permanence of the change after the Restoration of the 
Bourbon Monarchs.^ 

Feudalism, which had in fact long been yielding to the 
principle of Monarchy, thus disappeared. But the rule of 
priest and king was not so easily disposed of, and when Murat 
had been shot, and Waterloo had decided for awhile the 
fate of Europe, it was not difficult to subject once more 
to the obscurantist despotism of the Spanish Bourbons a 
people prepared for slavery by so many centuries of abject 
oppression at the hands of feudal lords, by ignorance and 
poverty still almost universal, and by peculiarly gross 
superstition.3 

Yet there were other elements in the Neapolitan 
kingdom. At the first coming of the French armies, in 
1799, the small educated class which alone had any real 
public spirit had hailed the opportunity of progress, and 
though the lazzaroni, under a protection which Englishmen 
would like to forget, had aided their royal master in making 
a hideous massacre of the most respectable inhabitants 
of Naples,* the subsequent rule of the Napoleonic kings 
had raised and encouraged that section of the community. 
After five years of restored Bourbon rule (1815-20) this 
class succeeded, through the agency of the secret society of 

' Johnston, i. 1-38, 2 j^^ j_ 221-223. 

^ King, I. 86-94. * Giglioli, last four chapters. 



40 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

the Carbonari, in winning over the military forces of the 
kingdom and extorting from Ferdinand I. the famous con- 
stitution of 1820. The unexpected news thrilled all Italy, 
and for awhile many observers, besides the impatient Byron 
at Ravenna, believed that all Italy would rise in arms. 
But another generation was to pass before the time was ripe 
for such a national movement, and meanwhile the Neapolitan 
Liberals did not know how to use the power they had so 
easily seized. They quarrelled with the Sicilians, who had 
also revolted against Ferdinand I., perorated ceaselessly 
in their Parliament, made no effective preparations for 
resistance, and fell an ignominious prey to the armies of 
Austria, sent down by Mettemich and the Holy Alliance 
to eradicate from the European body this plague-spot of 
constitutional government. Ferdinand I., who had, ac- 
cording to the family custom on these occasions, sworn 
to the constitution and then brought in foreign troops to 
put an end to it, took a horrible vengeance. Henceforth 
cruelty and espionage became the leading features of Bourbon 
rule, which, from 1815 to 1820, had been corrupt and 
obscurantist indeed, but not wantonly tyrannical. 

From 1821 to i860 the history of the government of 
Naples is little more than the annals of the police, who 
were assisted by all the other civil functionaries, by the 
remodelled army, by the priesthood, and by innumerable 
spies. The local authorities, chosen by the central government 
from among the fiercest reactionaries of each district, were 
primarily delators and police-agents, — little or nothing was 
done in the way of road-making, public works or local 
improvements of any kind. The whole energies of govern- 
ment, local and central, were devoted to repression. Every 
private person had to bribe and fawn upon the Capi Urbani 
(mayors and headmen of villages), the police, the priests 
and their innumerable dependants, or he would incur the 
greatest risk of being ruined, however innocent he might 
really be. There was, in practice, no law but the will of 
these harpies of Government. Sometimes the soldiery put 
in their oar ; one poor wretch in the province of Salerno 



NEAPOLITAN POLICE SYSTEM 41 

was given a hundred lashes by the order of a colonel ' for 

despising the authority of the king.' The comic element 

IS never long absent in Italy ; to wear a beard was considered 

a sign of Liberalism, and the poHce marched men off to the 

barber as readily as to prison. In such a state of society 

the ridiculous scrupulosity of the censorship, which practic- 

ally barred all serious modem Kterature, was one of the 

lesser evils. It caused no surprise that a barber of Regffio 

was fined 1000 ducats for having a volume of Leopardi's 

poems m his shop. ' The poHce,' wrote the British Minister 

m July 1856, and he might have written the same words 

w^ith^ equal truth any time during the previous thirty 

' the police, composed as it is of the most brutal and reckless set 
of mdmduals who have the power to imprison and maltreat 
any person without affording him the means of defence or 
redress, of course intimidate individuals, and prevent any con- 

the svJ ' "''""' r '^^ ^^"^ ""^ ^^-"Ption introduced by 

the system is so great that nobody can trust his neighbour.' 1 

This system was so humihating, so ubiquitous, and so 
corrupting that men of any pubHc spirit or even of any 
self-respect became actively hostile to the authorities. The 
mild and tender Luigi Settembrini, one of the most 
sympathetic characters ever produced by Italy, thusrecords 
the reasons why in 1839 he dehberately abandoned his 
happy and idyllic family Hfe and the easy career of a 
provincial Professor of Greek and Rhetoric, to spend 
the best twenty years of his manhood, either in filthy 
prisons or in obscure poverty : 

' In Lombardy and Venice,' he writes, 'there was the foreigner 
worse than any native tryanny ; but there the Austrian was 
strong, not stupid. He punished ferociously every poIitS 
crime, but favoured good administration, and was [usf o aU 
within certain hmits. In the North there were two kmps ; In 

'De Cesare, 1. 45, 46, 92, 93, 121, 122, 197, 201; «. no-ng and 
capers, 2, pp. 8, 9, 14. Castromediano, L, 84, 85. Posno, 21, note 2. 



42 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

one the foreigner, in the other the whole people. . . , But we in 
Naples, on the contrary, had fraternal tyranny, the cruellest of 
all ; and it was not Ferdinand who was the tyrant, no, it was 
the priest, the gendarme, the royal judge, the tax-gatherer, 
every employee of government : these men left us no hour of 
peace, but continually, daily, in the pubUc square and in 
the private chamber, stood by us, crying like robbers, "Give, 
or I strike." Such oppression corrupts a nation to the 
bones.' 1 

The embodiment of this rule was King Ferdinand II. 
(1830-59), the Bomba of Italian and English history. 
Like other exceedingly bad kings he had a fair share of 
domestic virtues, and he was not devoid of a queer personal 
attractiveness. It is true that his first wife, the refined and 
lovable Maria Christina of Savoy, the representative of a 
higher type of civilisation, was miserable at Naples. Whether 
or not the traditional story be true, that he pulled away the 
chair from under her as she sat, and that she leapt up in 
anger and called him the ' King of Lazzaroni,' 2 — he certainly 
was bored by what he regarded as her airs of superiority, 
and treated her with scant attention. She died in 1836, 
revered as a saint by the Neapolitans, and leaving a 
son Francis, feeble alike in body and mind, destined to 
forfeit the throne and end the dynasty. 

Ferdinand's second wife, the Austrian Maria Theresa, 
suited him better. He was invariably faithful to her. 
They lived a simple, secluded and frugal life, somewhat 
after the manner of George III. and his queen, except 
for the coarse practical jokes which were Ferdinand's 
delight. It would have been well for him if he had 
been of a more widely sociable disposition. A few jovial 
words spoken, as he knew so well how to speak them 
when he wished, to the leading men of the kingdom, a few 
more court ceremonies, a few more public appearances, a few 
largesses and smiles to the mob would, in the opinion of 
those who knew Naples, have done much to establish his 

* Settembrini, 1. 206, 207. 

" Settembrini, i. 54. Trinity, 125. De Cesare, I. 213, 214, 



KING FERDINAND II. 43 

dynasty. But he could not endure either court functions 
or general society. He would not even have the clergy as 
his companions, though he was superstitious to a degree 
that was remarked and ridiculed even in Naples, and though 
it was his fixed policy to increase the already extravagant 
privileges of the Church. When he chose, he could fasci- 
nate an enemy in a few minutes' conversation ; but there 
was often a malicious humour under his cordiality. ' Keep 
beside him,' wrote one shrewd observer, ' and he was all you 
could desire — lose sight of him for a moment and you might 
find yourself in the next five minutes under arrest.' He 
was clever with the cunning of a Neapolitan street lounger, 
but ignorant, and proud of his ignorance. Men of educa- 
tion he always spoke of as ' scribblers ' (pennaruli). He 
was politically a complete cynic, disbelieving in all public 
virtue, and disliking those who had a reputation for it, as 
tedious fellows who would not play the game. Deceit and 
tyranny were the two main principles of the art of govern- 
ment which had been taught him in youth and to which he 
adhered all his hfe. 

But, though unscrupulous as to means, he was faith- 
ful to what he regarded as the ends of politics. He was 
a true Neapolitan patriot : he disliked the idea of Italy 
a nation, but he kept Austria at arm's length more than 
his predecessors had done, refusing a strict alliance that 
would have made his throne secure. He knew how to 
resent with spirit the hostile interference of England and 
France. He was abler than his father. He reformed and 
strengthened the army, within the limits set by the uni- 
versal system of corruption, which he made no effort to 
change in any department of government. He worked 
with industry as the head of an over-centralised system. 
He was his own prime minister and his own favourite.' 

The Bourbon rule was odious to all good men, even to the 
few who, like Generals Filangieri and Pianell, loyally served 
it in the vain hope that it would some day be reformed, 

' De Cesare, i. 191-214. Nisco's Ferd, ii. 366-371. Trinity, 109-125, 
167-17 1. Settembrini, i. 52-54. 



44 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

But it remained unaltered from 182 1 till its destruction in 
i860, except during four months at the beginning of the 
year 1848, when, owing to the outbreak of the revolution 
in Sicily, the Neapolitans secured from Ferdinand II. 
another of those constitutions which this royal house was 
ever ready to swear to at need. The story of 1820 repeated 
itself with a difference. This time, indeed, as all Italy 
rose, and the national war against Austria was waged in the 
North, there was no Austrian invasion of Naples, and the 
reaction there was effected without foreign intervention. 
In May 1848, while the fortunes of free Italy were still at 
their zenith in the valley of the Po, while Radetzky was 
still at bay behind the Quadrilateral, the Neapolitans suc- 
ceeded in forfeiting their newly won freedom. There 
was a general want of experience, and, with honourable 
exceptions, a general want of public spirit. Violent 
counsels and cowardly conduct, the impolitic erection of 
barricades, and the refusal to fight behind them when erected, 
destroyed the Liberals, and enabled Ferdinand II., by the 
help of his Swiss regiments, to re-establish his despotic 
power on Ma}?^ 15, 1848.1 One of the most powerful 
arguments for the necessity of that union of Southern to 
Northern Italy which took place in i860 was the utter 
failure of the Neapolitans to maintain their own freedom 
when left to themselves in 1848. 

An ill-supported rising of the more spirited Calabrian 
peasants was speedily crushed, and Sicily was more gradu- 
ally reconquered (September 1848 — May 1849), with those 
horrors of bombardment and sack which won for Ferdinand II. 
the cognomen of BomhaJ' The Neapolitan troops, who 
had been foolishly insulted by their Liberal compatriots 
during the excitement of the days of freedom, had rallied 
to the throne, and henceforth hated the Liberals of the 
mainland hardly less than they hated, the Sicilians. ^ 
With this force Ferdinand was strong enough in the spring 

^ Nisco, Ferd. II. 176-184. Settembrini, i. 282-302, 
^ Short for Bombardatore, ' the bombarder.' 
" Settembrini, i. 321. 



THE REACTION IN NAPLES 45 

of 1849 to conduct a crusade against the Roman Republic 
on behalf of his guest, the exiled Pope Pio Nono.i But 
the only result was the defeat at Palestrina at the hands of 
Garibaldi, and the disgraceful retreat from Velletri, fatal 
to the confidence which the army had begun to feel in 
itself after the Sicilian victories. Such was the terror in- 
spired by the ' red devil ' in this campaign, that eleven 
years later the mere rumour of Garibaldi's approach could 
unnerve the Neapolitan regiments. 

So King Ferdinand returned from the vain pursuit of 
military glory to a task for which he had greater qualifica- 
tions, the persecution of his subjects. In the summer and 
autumn of 1849, the prisons of Naples and the provinces 
were rapidly filled with men, of every shade and variety 
of pohtical opinion, who had taken part in the movement 
of the previous year. Some, especially in Calabria, had 
risen in arms against the reaction, but others had been op- 
posed alike to the Calabrian and Sicilian rebels, and were 
guilty of no more than trying to work the constitution 
which the king had granted. It is impossible to estimate 
the number of Ferdinand's subjects who were languishing 
in prison for political offences by the year 185 1, because the 
Government never published, and probably never compiled, 
hsts of any except two very restricted classes of prisoners • 
but the number, 20,000, which Mr. Gladstone quoted as 
' no unreasonable estimate,' is considered as probably 
below the truth by Signor de Cesare, the impartial and 
well-informed modern historian of Naples. ^ This high 
figure would include the large numbers who were being 
detained year after year before trial, or after acquittal, or 
' correctionally,' that is by administrative order. But, 
besides the prisoners, there was an equally indefinite number 
of attendihili, or suspects under police supervision — estimated 

1 Trevelyan's Gar. Rome, chap. viii. 

2jDe Cesare' s F. di P. p. Ixix. For the arguments pro and con see 
Gladstone (Letter i.) 7 ; Gladstone Rass. 23-25 and Appendices ; Glad- 
stone Exam. 24-30. De Cesare considers Gladstone's reply in the Examin- 
ation to the Rassegna as ' victorious.' See also Br. Park Papers, 15, p. 2 
and Racioppi, 26, 



46 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

by Signor de Cesare at 50,000 ; these men, generally 
the most intelligent and often the wealthiest citizens of 
the districts where they severally resided, were cut off 
from all civil and academic functions, were forbidden to 
leave their houses without special licence from the police, and 
had their every action supervised by the authorities, who 
found pleasure in annoying them, and profit in extorting 
money for the least concession. 1 

These proceedings of Bomba, as our grandfathers almost 
invariably called him,^ became known to the whole world, 
and particularly to England, in their true colours, without 
the decorous coating of phrases and reticences in which the 
official world usually drapes such matters. Englishmen, 
for reasons which I have discussed in a previous chapter, 
were not at that period in the habit of finding excuses for 
this sort of tyranny. So the drama was unveiled to England 
and to Italy not only in its horror, but in its strange beauty ; 
for the leading victims — Poerio, Settembrini, and Castro- 
mediano — were men of such lofty idealism and gentle 
but resolute character as must qualify the sweeping 
condemnation so often, not unnaturally, pronounced on the 
inhabitants of the land of Vesuvius. If, in the terrible 
words wherein Filangieri unloaded the bitter experience of a 
lifetime, ' it is often a great calamity to a man of honour 
and spirit to be born a Neapolitan,' ^ the worst consequences 
of that calamity have been endured without such complaint 
by some of the choicest spirits who ever adorned the history 
of a people. 

Carlo Poerio, a man who held what would in England 
be called Conservative views, had opposed every sort of 

1 De Cesare' s P. di P. Ixxi, Ixxxl. Br. Pari. Papers, 15, pp. 2, 3, 9, 31, 
32, 36. Elliot, 13, 14. Castromediano, i. 39-59, 84,85. Racioppi, 34. 

2 ' The captain of an English merchantman once horrified a party of 
very loyal Neapolitans by saying, on seeing the portrait of Ferdinand, in 
what he meant to be a very respectful tone: " So that is King Bomba ! 'J 
The terror of his audience, who thought that the invisible and ever-present 
poUce would at once swoop down on the auditors of such a treasonable 
remark, it is not easy to describe,' Trinity, 118. 

* De Cesare, ii. 246. 



CARLO POERIO 

4/ 



armed insurrection in Sicily or elsewhere.! This man 
whom Mr Gladstone justly compared to the mo t u2 
mmded of h.s own English colleagues and rivals, wasVv 

heaZf th': ^,''^-;'-.-^-'^'"t--egarded as th; natural 
head of the Constitutional party. He had been one of 
Ferdinand smimsters under the constitution of 1848 and 
as such had been treated by his master with even more tSn 
usual bonhom>e. Ferdinand introduced him with effusion 

Tes cig?r°F:fti' 'i? '"IT' ^°' p^^-'^ - " 

t>est cigars. For the Kmg of Lazzaroni' had a vervreal 

tttnirt2rru!dnr:ntni'"" r-'-^ 

Poerio. Settembrini and fortrothL weTbrVtToTa: 
m June 1850 ; the case lasted till February 185? al houTh 
It was shortened bv the fact that ti,= „ • aitnough 

aUowed to bring Lir ^^L^Zr^^l "Ze^ 

"idtTfurtt^'n-'^' ^""^ '° ^-f -^ "-n 
reserved for further mvestigation,' a false witness named 

Jervolino was set up to swear one ridiculous absurd y 
after another agamst Poerio, floundering through w th the 
help of the judges. There was this difference letwei 
JervoUno and Titus Gates that „„ ■ "''^"'^'^ Between 

word he saiH Ti, r , ° °"-'' '° '^°"'^' believed a 

wora he said This formahty sufficed to secure for tf,» 

most respected subject of the Crown a sentence o twlntt 

ouryearsmirons. Whilethetragicfarceproceerd pleriJs" 
forty fellow prisoners, mcluding several of the noblest men 
m Italy ooked on in despair, pre-doomed, as thevknertn 
rum and long years of horror. One of the, number named 
Leipnecher, had already died of gaol fever, havL bin 

It I'f /■ ^™"S" °* 'he oppressed, will ex^ct 

retnbution for this man's death," his friend Pirrni cried 
out to the presiding judge. Little did they dream that 
the man who should be sent to avenge them^ was earnt 

Neap:Sa'o^Lerr„efraSt^tfaS ° V ""» '"^ 
connectioa with Ma^zini {E«ssee„aJ^TZf I Tt ?"'° °' ^°"^" 



^ Gladstone, n, 12, 19. 



48 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

his daily wage in carrying up barrels from the wharves of 
Staten Island. Still less did they suppose that his fore- 
runner was in court among the spectators. But there on 
the public benches sat an English visitor, come to Naples 
for his daughter's health, a man of middle age but with 
more than the fire of youth in his eyes, as he glowered with 
ill-restrained indignation at the wicked judges and false 
witnesses, and shook to think that this was perpetrated in 
the name of order and of religion. i 

Mr. Gladstone, who found himself at Naples for reasons 
entirely unconnected with politics, had no belief in the 
idea of Italian unity and nationality, which for many 
years to come he regarded as an idle dream. So far from 
sympathising with involution he was still, as he declared 
on his return to England, ' a member of the Conservative 
party in one of the great family of nations,' ' compelled to 
remember that that party stands in virtual and real 
though perhaps unconscious alliance with all the established 
Governments of Europe as such.' Any man so situated, and 
made of ordinary clay, would have been well content to spend 
his time at Naples in ' diving into volcanoes and explor- 
ing buried cities.' ^ But in this man's heart, deeper than 
party associations and personal predilections as to European 
politics, deeper even than the curiosity of the classical scholar, 
and far deeper than the desire for ease on a well-earned 
holiday, flamed the disinterested hatred of injustice and 
cruelty, often found as the handmaid of other passions, but 
seldom thus the lord and dictator of the soul. 

At the British Embassy he had come across its legal 
adviser, a worthy Neapolitan gentleman, shortly afterwards 
exiled and naturalised in England, where he rose by public 
service to high estimation as Sir James Lacaita.^ He told 
Mr. Gladstone much, and showed him more. Naturally 
the Liberal clergy were sought out with eager sympathy, 

> Gladstone, 14-23. Nisco, Ferd. II. 293-299. Morley, i. 389-391, 
De Cesare's F. di P., p. Ixv. 

2 Gladstone, 4. Morley, i. 389, 390, 401, 402. 
For details of his career see Gigli's Scrittori Manduriani. 



THE NEAPOLITAN PRISONERS 49 

but the friend of Newman acknowledged with a sigh the 
connection of another section of the clergy with the Govern- 
ment, and the services rendered by the confessional to the 
pohce. Then came Poerio's trial. After that the glories 
of the most beautiful bay in Europe lost hold upon his 
imagination, and when he looked out at ' the picturesque 
and romantic forms ' of ' those lovely islands scattered 
along the coast,' knowing now that they were the prisons, 
he could think of nothing but ' what huge and festering 
masses of human suffering they conceal.' 1 His spirit, 
shaking itself free of every impediment of interest and old 
association, rose in its native majesty, and heedless aUke 
of the scandal to official Europe, of the discomfiture of his 
own colleagues, of the triumph of Palmerston, to whom 
he would be forced to apologise, he determined on a 
Hne of action which, as his friend and biographer tells us, 
was the turning point of his own life, and may well be 
counted as the turning point in the shrunken tide of Italy's 
fortune.^ 

Poerio and his forty companions, except a fortunate 
half-dozen, were condemned. They were consigned to 
various terms of imprisonment — in the case of the principal 
leaders, for life, or for terms of years which it was thought 
probable they would not survive. Mr. Gladstone thereon 
determined to visit the Vicaria prison in Naples. The 
Government was so confident of its strength, and so 
ignorant of the visitor's intentions and power, that he 
obtained entry. The horrors of the Vicaria, probably the 
best prison in the kingdom, as being in the capital and 
therefore more exposed to inquiry and criticism, Mr. Glad- 
stone was accused of exaggerating. But when an English 
friend of the Neapolitan Government had seen it, he was 

^Gladstone, 13, 41-48. Morley, i. 391. Of the visits to the Liberal 
clergy I have heard in Italy. 

2 It must be remembered that Mr. Gladstone was recanting, Glad- 
stone and Molesworth, wrote Lord Palmerston in 1851, ' say that they 
were wrong last year in their attacks on my foreign policy, but they did 
not know the truth.l Palmerston, i. 257. 



B 



50 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

obliged to confess that ' the atmosphere was as thick as 
in a London fog from the horrible exhalations,' that the 
prisoners were ' evidently always addressed and treated 
as brutes,' and that ' human Hfe was in a Hving tomb, 
assisting at the spectacle of its own decay.' i It was 
here, then, that Mr. Gladstone saw 

' the official doctors not going to the sick prisoners, but the sick 
prisoners, men with almost death on their faces, toiling upstairs 
to them, because the lower regions of such a place of darkness 
are too foul and loathsome to aUow it to be expected that pro- 
fessional men should consent to earn bread by entering them.' ^ 

On the island prison of Nisida, whither he next pro- 
ceeded, he found Poerio and other distinguished men, in 
the coarse red garb of convicts, each of them chained 
either to a fellow sufferer in the cause, or else to a 
common criminal. 

' The prisoners had a heavy limping movement, much as if 
one leg had been shorter than the other. But the refinement of 
suffering in this case arises from the circumstance that here we 
have men of education and high feeling chained incessantly 
together.' 

The couphngs were never removed on any occasion either 
by day or by night. 

' I myself,' wrote Mr. Gladstone, ' saw a political prisoner, 
Romeo, chained in the manner I have described to an ordinary 
offender, a young man with one of the most ferocious and sullen 
countenances I have seen among hundreds of the Neapolitan 
criminals.' 

Another unfortunate, by a refinement of cruelty, was 
chained to the false witness named Margherita, who had 
been suborned against him at his trial. ^ 

' I must say,' wrote Mr. Gladstone, ' I was astonished at the 

1 Rassegna, 29, 30. Detailed Exposure, 36-40. 

2 Gladstone, p. 12. 

3 Castromediano, i. 281, says Poerio was coupled to Margherita in Nisida, 
but Gladstone, 27, implies that it was some one else. Castromediano was 
not in Nisida, so Mr. Gladstone's is the better evidence. 



MR. GLADSTONE VISITS THE PRISONS 51 

mildness with which they spoke of those at whose hands they 
were enduring these abominable persecutions, and at their 
Christian resignation as well as their forgiving temper, for they 
seemed ready to undergo with cheerfulness whatever might yet 
be in store for them. Their health was evidently suffering. . . . 
I had seen Poerio in December during his trial, but I should 
not have known him in Nisida. He did not expect his own 
health to stand, although God, he said, had given him strength to 
endure. It was suggested to him from an authoritative quarter, 
that his mother, of whom he was the only prop, might be sent 
to the king to implore his pardon, or he might himself apply 
for it. He steadily refused. That mother, when I was at 
Naples, was losing her mental powers under the pressure of 
her afflictions.' 1 

This lady died, in fact, in September of the following year. 
Her other son, Alessandro, of more fiery temperament and 
advanced politics, had fallen fighting for Italy in Venice. 
She had brought them up for such service, preferring un- 
happy sons to cowardly, but when the inevitable end came, 
it broke her heart. ^ 

It wa-s here in Nisida that the chained prisoners implored 
their visitor not to consider the further penalties which any 
public action on his part might bring down on themselves, 
but to consider only how he might accelerate the Hberation 
of their country. Before he left the island prison he had 
agreed with Poerio that public exposure was what was 
needed. ' As to us,' said that generous man, and his com- 
panions re-echoed him, ' as to us, never mind ; we can 
hardly be worse than we are.' ^ 

Having made this agreement with Poerio, it was perhaps 
a mistake on Mr. Gladstone's part that on his return to 
Eiigland he persuaded himself, or allowed Lord Aberdeen 
to persuade himj-^^ to delay publication until the elder 
statesman, * as an old friend of the Austrian Government ' 
in pre-Waterloo times, had applied privately to Vienna. 

1 Gladstone, 26, 27. ^ Martinengo Cesaresco, 142, 143, 148, 156. 

3 Nisco, Ferd. II., 302. Morley, i. 392, 393, Both pieces of first- 
hand evidence on this important point, 
■• Morley, 394, note. Aberdeen, 203. 

E 2 



52 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

Lord Aberdeen, convinced and shocked by what he heard, 
hoped that Austria, as the patron of Ferdinand, would use 
her influence to obtain ' some improvement.' ^ Two 
months elapsed before Schwarzenberg's answer came to 
hand, and during the interval Mr. Gladstone not un- 
naturally became impatient. Early in July 1851, two days 
before the arrival of the Austrian's reply, he published his 
famous ' Letters to Lord Aberdeen.' He should have done 
so two months before : publishing them when and how he 
did, he slightly offended his benevolent and honourable 
colleague. The Austrian negotiation with Naples, unsym- 
pathetically^ but honestly ^ undei^taken by Schwarzenberg, 
was from the first predestined to futility if it was in any 
way intended to fulfil the agreement with Poerio and his 
companions at Nisida. It is not conceivable that Austria, 
with her own black record as it then stood, and her entire 
policy based upon repression in Italy, would or could have 
obtained from Ferdinand — who was moreover no such 
complete slave of Austria as his predecessors had been "^ — 
more than the release of a certain number of prisoners. 
The question was not of a few dozen men but of many 
thousands, not of a single state trial but of a political 
system. 

' It is not,' wrote Mr. Gladstone in his first letter, ' it is not 
mere imperfection, not corruption in low quarters, not occasional 
severity that I am about to describe ; it is incessant, systematic 
violation of the law by the power appointed to watch over and 

* Aberdeen, 204. "^ Morley, i. 396. 

^ Lord Stanmore tells me that the reason why his father. Lord Aber- 
deen, was left so long without an answer by Schwarzenberg, was that the 
latter had written to Naples to get private assurance that Ferdinand 
would accede to the Austrian request when it was officially made. Lord 
Stanmore says that Schwarzenberg had got this assurance, though the 
exact nature of the promised concessions is not ascertainable. On the 
other hand, De Cesare, i. 65, 66, says that the Neapolitan Ministry 
absolutely disregarded the warning sent them by Castelcicala, their 
representative in London, of the forthcoming publication of Mr. Glad- 
stone's letters (of which Aberdeen had notified him), and concealed these 
warnings from King Ferdinand. 

* De Cesare, 1. 197. 



MR. GLADSTONE'S LETTERS 53 

maintain it. ... It is the wholesale persecution of virtue 
when united with intelligence, operating upon such a scale that 
entire classes may with truth be said to be its object, so that the 
Government is in bitter and cruel, as well as utterly illegal 1 
hostility to whatever in the nation really lives and moves and 
forms the mainspring of practical progress and improvement ; 
it is the awful profanation of pubHc religion, by its notorious 
alliance, in the governing powers, with the violation of every 
moral law. . . It is the perfect prostitution of the judicial office. 
. . I have seen and heard strong and too true expressions 
used, " This is the negation of God erected into a system of 
government." ' 2 

This terrible invective, and the yet more terrible array 
of facts supporting it, produced a profound and permanent 
effect on the sympathies of our country. It moulded 
English opinion on the subject of Naples, as Burke's more 
abstract ' Reflections ' moulded it on the subject of the French 
Revolution, and in both cases the pamphlet was the more 
persuasive because the author was a noted adherent of the 
English party least inclined to the views advocated. The 
press, almost without exception, joined in the outcry, 
and the Times gave up King Ferdinand, whom it had 
supported in 1848. 

In political circles abroad the letters aroused more con- 
troversy, but scarcely less interest. The reply of the 
Neapolitan Government convicted Mr. Gladstone of a few 
small mistakes which he readily acknowledged, but only 
served to demonstrate by its silences the truth of the 
bulk of his accusations, and was pounded to pieces in his 
' Examination of the Reply,' and in an anonymous ' Detailed 
Exposure.' The hatred felt for England in the Papal and 
reactionary world rose to extravagant heights. One of the 
principal historians of that party, De Sivo, in his elaborate 

1 The constitution granted in January 1848 was never repealed, but 
was treated as a dead letter. This insolent indifference to the law was 
what chiefly offended Mr. Gladstone's Conservative instincts. 

2 ' La negazione di Dio eretia a sistema di governo.'. It is to be noted 
that this famous epigram was not originally Mr. Gladstone's, but of Italian 
origin. Gladstone, 6. 



54 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

' History of the Two Sicilies,' more than ten years later, 
answered ' Lord Gladston ' by saying that the English 
sold their wives with ropes round their necks for a few 
* pences,' and then had the impertinence to complain of 
' little trials in Naples.' Although an important section of 
the French press, especially the Catholic papers, loudly 
defended the King of Naples, although high Parisian society 
made a dead set against England and Mr. Gladstone, yet 
the ultimate effect was very considerable on Napoleon III. 
and his subjects, who had moreover their own * Murattist ' 
designs on Southern Italy. In 1856, France joined England 
in withdrawing her minister from Naples as a protest against 
the royal misgovernment, and in the supreme crisis of 
Garibaldi's fate in i860, the sense that the Neapolitan 
Bourbons were pariahs prevented Napoleon from inter- 
fering on their behalf. For that strange man, though he 
had himself committed a great political crime, was not, 
like the despots of Eastern Europe, insensible to the moral 
responsibilities of diplomacy. Mr. Gladstone, in fact, 
created in France and England the feeling which kept 
the international ring clear for Garibaldi's final attack on 
the kingdom of the two Sicilies. When, in 1864, the 
Liberator of Naples came to our island, at a great re- 
ception held in his honour at Chiswick, Mr. Gladstone 
stood among other distinguished men to receive him 
on the staircase. As he came up in his red shirt 
and puncio, he saw the friend of the prisoners, seized 
his hand, and said with deep feeling the single word: 
' Precurseur.' 1 

But the most terrible sufferings of all — those which were 
endured in the mountain fortress of Montefusco and the 
island of San Stefano — were never witnessed or described 
by Mr. Gladstone. Posterity, however, possesses a yet 
more lifelike and intimate record than any which he could 
have given, for these experiences were narrated by the chief 

^ Argyll, i. 118. Mor/ey, i. 396-402. Panizzi's Life, ii. 96. Times, 
Sept. 26, 1851. De Sivo, il. 259, 265. De Cesare's F, di P. Ixix, Ixx, 



CASTROMEDIANO 55 

victims themselves, in the Memorie of Castromediano and 
the Ricordanze of Settembrini— memoirs such as can be 
written only by men of remarkable character and intellect 
under circumstances of transcendent interest.^ 

The Neapohtan nobihty as a whole, while often dis- 
approving of the action of the Government, left the consti- 
tutional movement in the hands of the class just below them 
in the social scale.2 But there were exceptions to this 
rule : — 

' Sigismondo Castromediano, Duke of Morciano, Marquis of 
Caballino, lord of seven baronies, died on the 26th of August, 
1895, in the smallest room of his vast, ruined castle, a few miles 
from Lecce. He left no heir to his poverty. With him dis- 
appeared a house which was already illustrious and ancient 
when one of its members fought for fair-haired Manfred of Bene- 
vento. On his cofiin were placed the chain of a galley-slave 
and the red jacket worn by Neapohtan convicts. These, he 
used to say, were his decorations.' ^ 

The man whose Hfe history is thus epitomised was more 
an antique Roman than a Neapolitan Liberal. He had 
the quahties of that aristocratic and stoic ideal adumbrated 
in the characters of Plutarch. His pride differed from the 
pride of other Neapolitan nobles, being inward not outward, 
moral not social ; he wished for no approval save from his 
own conscience. But he knew what the ancients did not 
always know, that the true pride is generous to enemies, and 
when, in the hour of triumph, Garibaldi asked him for the 
names of his unjust judges, he replied : ' I have forgotten 
them.' He was no pohtician, and he held in scorn the 
secret societies of Southern Italy with their ' ridiculous 
mystical rites.' He had no ambition save to hve and to 
die in his old castle, vastly remote from the world in the 

* Those who cannot read these works in the original, will find the two 
stories told in an admirable form in the Italian Characters of Countess 
Martinengo Cesaresco. Only the later edition (igoi) contains the essay 
on Castromediano. I take this opportunity of thanking the authoress of 
Italy's book of heroes for the many services which she has rendered to m3 
in the study of Garibaldian history. 

* Gladstone, 48. ^ Martinengo Cesaresco, 1, 



56 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

scorched Apulian wilderness. There, in fact, after i860, 
he passed the remaining thirty-five years of his long life. 
But in the early months of 1848 he felt bound to take his 
proper part as local magnate in the welcome given by the 
neighbourhood to the brief reign of liberty. For this he 
was seized, tried and condemned by the provincial court 
of Otranto to thirty years in irons.i 

In the prison on the island of Procida, where he 
was first confined after his sentence, the camorra ruled 
among the prisoners with little interference from the gaolers. 
The criminals had knives and murdered each other with 
relative impunity, while vice of every kind was rampant 
and uncontrolled. The more respectable inmates some- 
times begged to be confined in the worst penal dungeons 
of the place in order to avoid this terrible and dangerous 
society. But Castromediano was treated by the most 
abandoned wretches with the awe due to a superior being. 
At last, one day, the gaolers burst in with cries of ' Viva il 
Re! Liberty, liherta,' and informed the 'politicals' that they 
were released by the clemency of the king. They were 
sorted out from the common criminals and put on board 
ship for the mainland. For some hours the pitiless jest 
deceived many, but it soon appeared that they were only 
being moved to a place of yet more cruel torment. On the 
way thither, they were joined by another group of prisoners 
from Nisida, including Poerio and the men whom Mr. 
Gladstone had visited. Poerio was hailed by them all as 
their father and chief. Soon it was whispered in their ranks, 
but for long it was not believed, that they were bound for 
the up-country fortress of Montefusco, which had been closed 
seven years back as no longer fit for human habitation. 
In the damp walls of this medieval ruin, Ferdinand had 
determined to confine fifty of the principal political prisoners 
under harsh rules specially approved by himself, and under 
a gaoler who was the incarnation of cruelty. As the files 
of chained prisoners, already fainting with hunger and 

^ Castromediano, i, 18-20, 126. Martinengo Cesaresco, 2 



THE DUNGEONS OF MONTEFUSCO 57 

misery, wound up the mountain road to this dreadful place, 
a gaunt, half-naked beggar suddenly rose up on the wall of 
a town beneath which they were passing, and waving his 
great stick cried out in devilish glee : ' Viva '0 Re ! Car- 
bonari ! Jacobins ! Montefusco is waiting for you.' And 
then, breaking into song, he croaked out : 

' Whoe'er comes back to life 
From Montefusco's towers 
May boast himself twice born 
Into this world of ours.' 

They passed on with sinking hearts. 1 

On their first arrival in the damp and vermin haunted 
dungeons, they were almost starved to death, and only 
obtained food as the result of long expostulations. The 
chief gaoler exhausted every device to aggravate their 
misery. Though they were all men of refinement, orderly 
and long suffering, they were daily threatened with flogging, 
which was actually carried out upon one of them. Their 
letters were not only read by the gaolers but were often kept 
back with cruel insult, except on those frequent occasions 
when the death of some broken-hearted wife, father, mother, 
or sister was announced ; then, indeed, the letters were 
handed on with alacrity, but without a sign of compassion. 
Many of them were permanently ruined in health, 
eight died of disease, and none were ' bom again ' without 
carrying away lasting traces of their entombment. Castrome- 
diano's hair turned white, but he and Poerio, though both 
shaken by illness, supported the spirits of their comrades, 
which were indeed of metal kindred to their own. The 
song of a nightingale pouring out from bushes below the 
castle gave them comfort and hope ; it was therefore killed 
by the gaoler.^ 

At last half a dozen out of the fifty were corrupted and 
oecame spies on the rest. They were perpetually worried 

* Castromediano, i. 229-233, 251, 252, 273-298, 306. 
^ Castromediano, i. 319, 326, 327; ii. 194, 195. Martinengo Cesaresco, 
10-12. Nisco, Ferd, II., 313-315. Poerio, 53. 



58 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

to sue for pardon. Indeed, it is probable that the worst 
severities were appHed in order to break the spirit of the 
men whose names now stood for so much in Italy and in 
Europe, and induce them to recant and humble themselves 
before the throne so gravely imperilled by their now famous 
sufferings and their continued defiance. But they knew they 
were in the forefront of Italy's battle, and were ready to die 
at their posts. ^ 

Meanwhile on the desert island of San Stefano, ten 
leagues out to sea off Gaeta, Luigi Settembrini, under a 
sentence of death commuted to that of perpetual imprison- 
ment, was shut up with thirty other ' politicals ' in the 
famous ergasiolo, among eight hundred wretches condemned 
for murder and other more abominable crimes to hopeless 
and unending punishment. Over a doorway opposite the 
prison-house ran a Latin inscription : 

* Donee Sancta Themis scelerum tot monsira catenis 
Vincta tenet, stat res, stat tihi tuta domus."^ 

These words,' wrote Settembrini, ' were not read or not 
understood by most who entered, but they froze the hearts of 
the political prisoners, warning them that they were entering a 
place of everlasting woe, among a lost people, of whom they 
themselves were to become part. One must have great faith in 
God and in virtue not to despair.' 

Here no one was chained. There was in fact much licence. 
Drink went the round among the worst of the inmates, 
perhaps alleviating their misery and certainly shortening 
its term, but greatly adding to the discomfort of the respect- 
able prisoners. Knives were common, and murder was an 
ordinary incident. Ten men were shut up together in each 
cell, the political prisoners being carefully scattered about 
so that they should in all cases be physically and morally 
at the mercy of their dreadful companions. ' Men become 

* Castromediano, 11. 39-66. 

2 While sacred Justice holds in chains so many monsters of crime, your 
wealth and house stand safe. 



SETTEMBRINI ON SAN STEFANO 59 

beasts, descended to the utmost depth of moral degrada- 
tion/ wrote Settembrini, although he succeeded in forming 
close human and spiritual relations with one or two of these 
children of unutterable woe.^ 

The diary of this man's agony, written in the gaol of 
criminals condemned for life, has become an Italian 
classic. 

' The three years,' he wrote, after that time had elapsed, 
' are for me as one sole day — both short and long. I turn to 
contemplate this lapse of time, unmarked by events, and it 
seems brief ; one day does not differ from another ; one always 
sees and suffers the same things. Here time is like a shoreless 
sea, without sun or moon or stars — immense and monotonous. 
Many of the prisoners who have been here for thirty years say, 
when they speak of what they did or saw thirty years ago, 
" Not long since I saw this, I did that." I also say, " Not long 
since I was condemned to death." But when I look upon 
myself and my soul and this poor, torn heart, when I reckon up 
my woes and uncover the wounds which reach even to the depths 
of my soul, oh, then these three years seem to me infinite ! I 
cannot recall the few pleasures and the many griefs I had before : 
the griefs of these three endless years seem all my life. Three 
years, and if I have to say ten, and twenty, and thirty ? I shall 
never say it, for I shall not live so long. 

' My body and my clothes are soiled ; it is of no use to try 
and keep clean ; the smoke and dirt make me sickening to 
myself. My spirit is tainted ; I feel all the hideousness, the 
horror, the terror of crime ; had I remorse, I should think I too 
were a criminal. My spirit is being undone. It seems to me 
as if my hands also were foul with blood and theft. I forget 
virtue and beauty. 

' Oh, my God, Father of the unfortunate, consoler of those 
who suffer, oh save my soul from this filth, and if Thou hast 
written that I must here end my sorrowful life, oh let that end 
come soon. Thou knowest grief does not frighten or subdue 
me ; I bear my cross ; even on my knees I drag it after me ; 
but I fear to become vile, I fear my soul growing perverted ; 
even now, I recognise it no more.' ^ 



• Settembrini, ii. 225-279. Nisco, Ferd. II. 316, 317, 
^ Settembrini, ii. 288-291. Martinengo Cesar esco, 66. 



6o GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

In April 1854 he wrote to his wife : — 

' I kissed your portrait, my beloved one, but I kissed it in 
secret. The men among whom I live, if they had seen me would 
have laughed at me, because they have no knowledge of virtue 
or of love. . . . Were anyone to read the words I write to 
you he would laugh at me and at my love. But you will not 
laugh, my beloved. Those who have not suffered as we 
have suffered cannot understand how misfortune strengthens 
and purifies love.' 1 

Settembrini preserved his life and his reason in this hell 
by applying his mind to his famous translation of Lucian, 
and by enjoying the friendship of his fellow prisoner Silvio 
Spaventa.3 

In the winter of 1854-55 the political prisoners were at 
length separated from the criminals and confined together 
in two rooms overlooking the sea. Here they began 
seriously to devise means of escape, concerted by secret 
correspondence with their Italian friends through the 
medium of Temple, the British Minister at Naples. Anthony 
Panizzi, an exile from Modena ever since 1821, famous in 
the land of his adoption as the Librarian of the British 
Museum, formed a plot for the release of Settembrini and 
Spaventa. Money was collected for this purpose from 
Lord and Lady Holland, Mr. Gladstone and others. Sir 
James Hudson, the British Minister at Turin, who had 
already earned the confidence of all parties of Itahan patriots, 
from Cavour downwards, introduced the English conspira- 
tors to the Democrats of Genoa, well knowing that they 
were better suited than Moderates and Cavourians for an 
enterprise of this character.^ The Italian end of the plot 
was therefore placed in the hands of three men : Medici, 
who had so gallantly defended the Vascello, the key to the 
Janiculum, in the siege of 1849 » Bertani, the head doctor 
of the Roman hospitals on that occasion, now the chief agent 
and friend of Mazzini in Italy ; and Garibaldi himself — 

1 Settembrini, il. 323-325. " Spaventa, 156-160. 

3 Cavour, indeed, knew of the plot, and believed that Palmerston knew 
also. Castromediano, 1. 273, 



PLOT TO RELEASE SETTEMBRINI 6i 

three old friends who were destined ere long to organise and 
execute a more important but no less hairbrained adventure 
than the release of Setterabrini from San Stefano. Gari- 
baldi, all agog for action on however small a scale, under- 
took to command the expedition, and a detailed plan of 
escape was arranged with the prisoners. But the ship, 
purchased by the English sympathisers, was lost off Yar- 
mouth in October 1855, before ever Garibaldi had set foot 
on her deck. The plot never fairly recovered from this blow, 
though Garibaldi paid a flying visit to Panizzi in the British 
Museum in February 1856. But Temple had long thought 
it imprudent, and Panizzi was won over to that opinion. 
By the end of the year even Bertani gave up hope. So 
Garibaldi remained on Caprera, and Settembrini on San 
Stefano for another three years.i 

While the emissaries of this abortive plot were passing 
between Caprera, Genoa and England, the stir of movement 
began again in the Neapolitan dominions. After 1848 all 
hope had been dead, and even indignation had been muffled 
by fear, until Cavour's Crimean policy encouraged the 
Italian cause in general, and England and France raised 
the Neapolitan question in particular. Finally, in October 
1856, the two Western powers withdrew their representa- 
tives from Naples for no reason in the world except that 
the king sturdily refused to listen to our advice as to his 
methods of governing his own subjects.^ This action of 
Palmerston and Clarendon, though it was shrewdly criticised 
by men of the world as being at once interfering and impo- 
tent, had real effect in encouraging King Ferdinand's 
rebellious subjects, who saw in it a promise of help, and an 
official endorsement of Mr. Gladstone's accusations. The 
victories of the Italians in the Crimea, and the importance 
of the English and French action at Naples, were both 
greatly exaggerated as rumour passed secretly from mouth 

^ Milan MS., Archivio Bertani, Plico D. Risorg. anno 1., 1. 22-65, 
Cattaneo, 127, 128. Panizzi's Life, il. 131-143. Mario Supp, 135. Mario 
Vita, i. 147, 148. 

Br, Parh Papers, 2, p. 34 and passim, 



62 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

to mouth among the Sicihans and South Itahans, whose 
ill-informed and easily excited minds were rendered doubly 
credulous by the artificial ignorance imposed by the censor. 
The era of hope and conspiracy began again. ^ 

But in order to understand the three rival policies 
directed against the King of Naples — the Murattist, the 
Mazzinian and the Cavourian — and Garibaldi's relation to 
each, it will be necessary to take a wider survey of Itahan 
affairs. 

1 Greville, viii, 60-65, 7^} S9. De Cesare's F. di P,, Ixxxii, Ixxxiii, 



CHAPTER IV 

CAVOUR BRINGS THE DEMOCRATS AND NAPOLEON III. INTO 
HIS CAMP. — PISACANE'S EXPEDITION, — PLOMBI^RES AND 
THE DECLARATION OF WAR AGAINST AUSTRIA. — 
1856-59 

• The adhesion of Garibaldi to our principles Is an event of immense 
importance. We must make the utmost of this event, which secures for 
us the sympathies, and, when required, the active assistance of all the 
youth of Italy.' — Letter of Pallavicino to Manin, 1857.^ 

The Democratic party, in which resided most of the 
faith, vigour and initiative of the Italian Risorgimento, as 
well as most of its unwisdom and rashness, had in 
the summer of 1849 come into deadly conflict on the walls 
of Rome with France and Napoleon III. Nothing short 
of the supreme genius of Cavour could in ten years' time 
have brought these irreconcilable enemies side by side into 
the field against Austria. Indeed, Cavour was one of the 
very few men who so much as realised the necessity for 
this strange combination, but he saw from the first that 
the Piedmontese statesmen and soldiers could not over- 
come Austria and the princes dependent on her in Italy, 
without the assistance both of France and of the Italian 
Democrats. In September 1856 he made his pact with 
the Democratic leaders. In July 1858, at Plombieres, he 
made his pact with the French Emperor. In the spring 
of 1859 he forced on the war and the revolution. 

On the side of the Italian Democrats, the originators of 
the alliance with Cavour were Manin, the creator and 
defender of the Venetian Republic of 1848, and his intimate 
friend Pallavicino. 2 The immense value which they 
attached to the adhesion of Garibaldi to their new policy 

^ Manin e Pall, 312. ^ Gioberti e Pall, and Manin e Pall., passim, 

63 



64 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

is shown by the words which stand at the head of this 
chapter. That adhesion was readily given. On August 13, 
1856, Garibaldi, introduced by Pallavicino, had his first 
interview with Cavour. The guerilla chief was received with 
courteous familiarity, and went away rejoicing and speaking 
of the great minister as ' his friend.' 1 The interview 
was secret, but Garibaldi next year publicly proclaimed 
his acceptance of Victor Emmanuel's kingship as the basis 
of Italian unity. When the world knew that the defender 
of the Roman Republic had, at the instigation of the defender 
of the Venetian Republic, accepted the principle of Monarchy, 
all chance of further disruption in the Liberal ranks was 
removed, and the Italian patriots, with a few important 
exceptions, were united under one flag. Mazzini's policy 
of the ' neutral banner ' — that is, the policy of temporary 
aUiance with Piedmont against Austria, leaving the question 
of Monarchy or Repubhc to be settled after the war — was 
now repudiated. Garibaldi never ceased to think that a 
Republic was ideally the best form of government, but he 
remained for the rest of his life actively loyal to the Italian 
monarchy, and never, though often under severe tempta- 
tion, consented to raise the * neutral banner.' 

To this great decision, the most important and the best 
political action of his long career, he was urged by many 
motives. Above all else he saw that the Monarchy would 
unite a country which the Republic would divide. ' I was 
and still am a Republican,' he wrote, ' but I have no belief 
in a system of popular government so uncompromising 
as to impose itself by force on the majority of a nation.' 2 
Another motive perhaps was irritation with Mazzini, the 
legacy of their quarrels during the defence of Rome, and 
the result of the natural incompatibility of their characters. » 

* Manin e Pall. 172. ^ Mem. ■z-j-j. 

^ When Garibaldi came to London in 1864, Mr. John Morley, who 
had seen his triumphal entry, was describing it in the erening to Mazzini. 
Mazzini asked, ' Well, Mr. Morley, have you ever seen a lion ? ' ' Yes, I 
have, at the Zoo.! * Have you noticed the face of a lion ? Do you not 
think it is a very foolish face ? Well, that is Garibaldi's,? I have this 
story at first hand. 



THE NATIONAL SOCIETY 65 

Another, closely connected with this feeling, was his 
soldierly dislike of the Mazzinian method of undertaking 
wars with undisciplined and insufficient forces, and his 
perception that the regular army of Piedmont was essential 
tp the expulsion of the Austrians.i We must also take 
into account at this period his confidence in Cavour, and 
his belief that Italy was on the eve of war and revolution, 
stirred up this time ' from above.' 2 He had, besides, 
at all times, a vague belief in the uses of a popular Dictator 
to supplement or replace ParHamentary government, and 
this theory, which ran strangely athwart his democratic 
and republican principles in his illogical mind, predisposed 
him to accept the headship of Victor Emmanuel.^ Last, 
but not least, we must count his personal devotion to 
the chivalrous warrior king. Garibaldi's belief in Victor 
Emmanuel survived by many years his belief in Cavour, 
and was ended only by death. 

In the summer of 1857 the leaders of the new ' National 
party ' formed the ' Italian National Society,' modelHng 
its organisation on that of the English Anti-Corn-Law 
League. Italians of all the provinces, free or enslaved, were 
invited to join, and did so in thousands. The officers of 
the society were converted Republicans ; Pallavicino was 
president. Garibaldi vice-president, the SiciHan La Farina 
secretary. Manin, in his exile in Paris, signed the articles 
of the society on his death-bed in August 1857, and did not 
live to see the ripening of his well-laid scheme for the 
liberation of Italy .^ 

Hitherto the policy of the House of Savoy, even when 
patriotic and Liberal, had been ' provincial ' — or ' muni- 
cipal ' as the Mazzinians tauntingly called it — aiming at 
the extension of the boundaries of Piedmont, not at the 
creation of an Italian State in which Piedmont should 
merge its own existence. Hitherto the ' men of the revolu- 
tion,' the Democratic party inspired by Mazzini, had been 

' Mario, 212. Manin e Pall. 164. Ciampoli, 74. " Ciampoli, 76, 

' Ci&mpoli, 85, 952-954. Mem. 320, 344. Guerzoni, 1, 411, 
* Manin e Pall. 341-348. Cappelleiti's V, E. i. 347, 348. 

F 



66 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

the leaders of the movement for national unity, which 
had seemed a chimera to Piedmontese statesmen. Cavour's 
predecessors and many of his colleagues * wished to annex 
Lombardy and the Duchies but not to make the nation.' i 
But now things had changed. The Prime Minister of 
Piedmont was in secret alHance with a society, headed by ex- 
Republican chiefs, whose avowed aim was to place the 
crown of all Italy and Sicily on the head of Victor Emmanuel. 
Each side had accepted something of the programme and 
spirit of the other. 

But the degree to which Cavour was conspiring with 
Pallavicino and Garibaldi against the Pope and the King of 
Naples had to be concealed, lest Napoleon should take 
alarm and so the other conspiracy against Austria in the 
North be utterly frustrated. For Napoleon would not 
allow North Italy to annex either Rome or the South. 
On the one hand he was protector of the Pope, and on the 
other he had designs of placing on the throne of Naples 
his own kinsman Lucien Murat, who, through his father 
Joachim, had some rights of memory in that kingdom. All 
that Cavour dared do, to thwart these Murattist designs 
so dangerous to the prospects of Italian unity, was to 
put the EngUsh diplomats on their guard.^ In September, 
1857, he explained his position frankly to La Farina, the 
Sicilian secretary of the National Society : — 

' I have faith,' said Cavour, ' that Italy will become one 
State, and will have Rome for its capital. But I do not know 
whether it is ready for this great change, for I do not know the 
other provinces of Italy. I am minister of the King of Piedmont, 
and I cannot, I ought not, to say or do anything prematurely 
to compromise his dynasty. Make your National Society, and 
we shall not have long to wait for our opportunity. But re- 
member that among my political friends no one believes the 
enterprise (viz. the union of Italy) possible, and that haste would 
compromise me and the cause. Come to see me whenever you 
like, but come at daybreak, and let no one else see or know. 
If,' he added smiling, 'I am questioned in Parliament or by 

^Gioh. e Pall, viii, ix. Chiala, ii. 144. ^ Chiala, ii. 143, 296, 45S, 459. 



CAVOUR AND LA FARIMA 67 

diplomats, I shall deny you, like Peter, and say, " I know him 
not." ' 

From that time forward La Farina regularly visited Cavour, 
coming up to his bedroom every day before sunrise, by a 
secret stair.^ 

For the present, therefore, the Piedmontese propaganda 
in Naples and Sicily had little open support from the Pied- 
montese Government. But it was vigorously pushed by 
Cavour's Neapolitan friends living in exile at Turin, like 
Antonio Scialoja, as also by La Farina and the National 
Society. 2 It was also favourably regarded by the men 
who from the Neapolitan prisons exercised a profound 
influence over Neapolitan opinion. Poerio managed to 
smuggle out from the dungeon of Montefusco a pencilled 
note with the words : ' Let our pole-star be always and 
only Piedmont.' Both he and Settembrini condemned 
the French Murattist movement as anti-national, and the 
action of the Mazzinians as factious, premature, and some- 
times criminal.3 Por the Mazzinian party, though it 
did useful work in combating the Murattists, * attacked 
the Bourbon rule by some very questionable methods. 
The attempt to assassinate King Ferdinand, in December 
1856, made by the soldier Agesilao Milano, who wounded 
him with the bayonet during a review, was the act of a 
solitary individual, a Mazzinian fanatic ready to sacrifice 
his own life, and endowed with moral qualities which 
explain, though they can hardly justify, the high esteem 
in which his memory was held by Italian and English 
sympathisers. 5 But to Mazzini himself and a large 
section of his followers must be assigned the praise and 
blame for Pisacane's expedition of the following summer. 

The Mazzinians, alarmed at the progress of Murattism, 
determined on immediate action in the south. A plan 

1 Chiala, il. 144. ^ De Cesare's Scialoja, 34, 35. Manin e Pall. 338. 

* Castroniediano, il. 37, 38. De Cesare's F. di P. p. Ixxxlli. Poerio, 
40-42, 52, Settembrini, ii. 414-416, 434. 

* Mazzini, ix. p. civ, cv. ^ De Cesave, i. 167-176. 

F 2 



68 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

was formed to invade the Neapolitan coast from Genoa, 
the sea-cradle of Italian democracy. Mazzini himself left 
England, and came disguised to the base of operations. But 
the resources of his party, after the recent secessions to the 
National Society, were so small, the reports from the Nea- 
politan capital so discouraging, that half even of the faithful 
remnant tried to persuade their chief to abandon the rash 
project. His old friend Saffi, who^ having shared his 
triumvirate in Rome, now shared his exile in England, 
and Bertani, his agent in Genoa, were alike opposed to 
the design. The best Neapolitan soldier among the exiles, 
Cosenz, afterwards Garibaldi's able lieutenant in Sicily 
and Naples, refused to lead men to destruction. i Gari- 
baldi himself, when Jessie White Mario upbraided him 
for declining to join the expedition, replied to her with 
kindness and good humour, but declared that he disapproved 
of sending men to the slaughter ' to make the canaille laugh.' 2 

But Mazzini found men of the right temper for his 
purpose in the Neapolitan Carlo Pisacane, the Calabrian 
Nicotera, and the Sicilian Rosolino^ Pilo. On June 25, 1857, 
Pisacane and Nicotera sailed from Genoa in a small steamer 
named the CagUari, taking with them two dozen young 
men of a spirit no less determined than their own. They 
missed Pilo, who was on the look out for them with a similar 
force in another small ship, and sailed on alone to meet their 
fate. 

The original design had been to land first on the island 
of San Stefano, and release Settembrini, Spaventa, and their 
fellow prisoners. But Spaventa, whom they found means 
to consult, would have nothing to do with the plan, foi 
fear that the forcible capture of the island would involve 
the release of the malefactors as well as of the political 

^Bertani, 1. 242. Sapri, chaps, i-vli. Paolucci's Pilo, 217.. Mazzini, 
Ix. p. cxxx-cxxxviii. 

2 This letter is given in full in Mario Supp. 139, 140, where its real date, 
Feb. 3, 1857, and its context is given. The date of the letter in Mario, 
Vita, i. 149, and Ciampoli, 73, is incorrect. 

^ Often spelt Rosalino, but Sicilian writers, notably Signor Paolucci, 
spell it Kosolino. 



PISACANE'S EXPEDITION 69 

prisoners.! Pisacane therefore landed instead at the 
neighbouring convict island of Ponza, which the little 
force captured by a brilliant stroke. There followed the 
disgraceful scene averted from San Stefano by Spaventa's 
unselfish caution. Pisacane released and took away with 
him on the CagUari some 200 common convicts, besides a 
dozen ' politicals ' and a hundred old soldiers of the War 
of Liberation. 2 With this undesirable force they landed at 
Sapri. Some of the Liberals of the neighbourhood tried to 
raise the cry of Viva Murat, but the cries raised by the in- 
vaders were Viva I' Italia and Viva la Repuhhlica.^ As they 
marched up country into the mountains of the Basilicata, 
they found the peasantry in some villages neutral, while 
others turned out to defend their homes against a force 
which they justly beheved to be principally composed of 
criminals, although Pisacane was able to repress any 
tendency to misconduct during the short time the expedi- 
tion lasted.^ Reactionary feeling, stirred up by the 
village priests, was not wanting, and the Liberators found 
themselves opposed not only by Neapolitan troops, but by 
armed peasants, and even by women and children. After 
two severe conflicts with the troops and peasantry at Padula 
and Sanza, in which the convicts bore themselves well, the 
Republican force was overpowered. A pitiless massacre 
ensued, for the peasants were mad with rage. Pisacane 
died fighting ; Nicotera and others were captured, desper- 
ately wounded.^ 

Meanwhile at Genoa, Mazzini plotted to surprise and 
capture the royal arsenals, in order to fit out further expedi- 
tions in aid of Pisacane. The Piedmontese government had 
warning, and forestalled the attempt. Thereupon, by 
Mazzini's advice, it was decided to abandon the project, but 
one small party of the conspirators proceeded to carry out 

1 Nisco, Ferd. II. 362. The Panlzzi-Garibaldi plot for their release 
(see p. 61 above) had involved no risk of freeing the common convicts, as 
stealth, not force, was the principle of that plan. 

^ Sapri, 156, Nisco, Ferd.. II. 362. ^ Sapri, 195. Nicotera, 15. 

* Sapri, 197, Nicotera, 15. ^ Sapri, chaps, xv.-xix. Nicotera, 15-22. 



70 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

its original orders, and a scuffle took place in which a 
Piedmontese soldier was killed. Throughout the peninsula 
the indignation of patriots was aroused against the men 
who had fired on the national uniform and wantonly risked 
a civil war in the State which was now regarded as Italy in 
embryo. Public opinion enabled Cavour to indulge to the 
full his lifelong hatred of Mazzini, which contrasted so 
strongly with his admiration for Garibaldi. Mazzini 
escaped to England, but was condemned to death in 
his absence, and many of his followers were sentenced 
to long terms of imprisonment. His prestige had received 
an even more severe blow than that which it had suffered 
from the affairs of Mantua and Milan five years before. His 
party was in ruins. i 

Pisacane's expedition against the Bourbons is related to 
Garibaldi's successful expedition three years later, exactly 
as John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry is related to the 
American Civil War. Pisacane was at the time condemned 
by almost all the friends of freedom, as having brought 
discredit on the cause, but a few years later his name was 
the watchword of that cause in the hour of its triumph, 
when the ghosts of the forerunners seemed to be marching 
in front of the triumphant columns of liberation. Like John 
Brown, he had exacerbated the feud, made compromise im- 
possible, and so helped to bring on the final struggle. Like 
Brown, he had committed some acts that were criminal, and 
some that were sublime, and above all else he had known 
how to die. The Genoese part of the plot, the attack on 
the Piedmontese arsenals, had scarcely the shadow of an 
excuse, but its failure served at least to show that without 
the secret connivance of the Piedmontese authorities no 
effective expedition could sail from Genoa against the Bour- 
bons. In i860 this lesson was not forgotten by Garibaldi — 
nor by Cavour. 

Although Cavour's severe reprisals on the Mazzinians 

1 Sapri, chap. xiv. Chiala, 11. 168-173. King's Mazzini, 174, 175. 
Mazzini, ix. cxxxix-clv, Risorg. anno ii., ii. p. 205, 



ORSINI'S ATTEMPT 71 

for the Genoese insurrection incurred some censure from 
contemporaries, and more from posterity, those measures 
were thought too lenient by the nervous usurper in the 
Tuileries, who denounced Genoa as the most dangerous city 
in Europe and, Hke a true Bonaparte, ceaselessly complained 
that political exiles were permitted to live in Piedmont, 
and that the press there enjoyed a relative freedom.^ His 
querulous outcries about exiles and newspapers were treated 
with scorn when addressed to Great Britain, but caused 
grave anxiety to Victor Emmanuel and Cavour, who on 
the one hand could not abandon the system of liberty in 
Piedmont without sacrificing the newly-won attachment 
of the Democrats throughout the Peninsula, nor, on the other, 
offend Napoleon without losing their last chance of driving 
the Austrians out of Milan. From this dilemma they 
escaped in strange fashion through an event which seemed 
certain by its very nature to precipitate them into the 
abyss. 

On the night of January 14, 1858, as the Emperor 
Napoleon and the Empress Eugenie were driving together 
to the opera, three bombs were hurled at them near the 
entrance of the theatre. The horses were killed, but the 
Emperor, like his uncle under the curiously similar circum- 
stances of the royalist plot of 1800, stepped out unhurt 
from the ruins of the carriage. Around lay 156 wounded, 
of whom eight expired. When Cavour heard of this wanton 
slaughter, equally provocative to the sovereign who had 
been the intended victim and to his people who had been 
the actual sufferers, he exclaimed in an agony of apprehen- 
sion — ' if only this is not the work of Italians ! ' Soon his 
worst fears were realized. The criminal turned out to be 
Felice Orsini, ex-official of the Roman Republic of 1849, 
in the service of which he had distinguished himself by 
suppressing terrorism and political crime at Ancona.^ 
Since then he had lived much in England, seeing Mazzini's 
English friends, and still sharing his political views. Of 
these views, perhaps the most erroneous was a fixed belief 

' Bianchi, vii. 381-384. ^ Trevelyan's Gar. Fame, 104. 



72 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

that only Napoleon prevented France from going to war on 
behalf of Italy, whereas the exact opposite was the case. 
Under this delusion as to politics, and a yet worse delusion 
of his own as to ethics, Orsini, who had at this time 
quarrelled with Mazzini over some private affairs, devised 
his plot without the knowledge of his old associates, but with 
the help of some mean tools of his own finding.i 

Austria herself could not have wished for an event more 
compromising to the hopes of Italy, except for the one 
circumstance that the bombs and bomb-throwers had 
come to France not from Piedmont but from England. 
The anger of France was expended against ' perfidious 
Albion,' with whom a long and complicated quarrel arose 
out of the affair. At first, indeed. Napoleon was scarcely 
less angry with Piedmont, and demanded of her in set terms 
the expulsion of the emigrants and the silencing of the 
Democratic press. The moment was one of extreme peril. 
But now, as on several later occasions, the King came to the 
rescue of his great minister. In a spirited but friendly 
letter Victor Emmanuel stated the position with a wise 
frankness. 

* If the Emperor wishes me to use violence in my kingdom, 
let him know that I should lose all my influence, and he all the 
sympathies of a generous and noble nation. . . that he has no 
right to treat a faithful ally in this fashion ; that I have never 
endured violence from anyone ; that I follow the path of 
honour without reproach, and am responsible for that honour 
only to God and my people ; that our house has carried its head 
high for 850 years, and that no one will make me bow it | and 
that with all this I desire to be nothing but his friend.' 

In accordance with instructions received, General Delia 
Rocca ' committed the imprudence ' of reading to the 
Emperor these words which would have goaded the first 
Napoleon to some outburst of vulgar fury. ' That is what 
I call courage,' was the generous reply ; * your king is a 

^ La Gorce, ii. 212-224, 239. King, il. 45. Mazzini, x. p. xv. King's 
Mazzini, 165. Martinengo Cesar&sco's Cavour, 128. 



KING VICTOR EMMANUEL 73 

fine fellow ; I like his letter.' 1 The doubtful and weak- 
willed guide of Europe's destiny was touched by the 
undiplomatic sound of truth, purpose, and courage ; the 
adventurer was held in envious admiration of ' that ancient 
royalty which was the one thing he could not purchase.' 

And, indeed, the fiery little warrior, with the immense 
moustache, who strutted about, head in air, as though he 
were vainly trying to overtop his courtiers, was ' every inch 
a king.' Victor Emmanuel came of a royal stock so ancient 
and so honourable that it could afford to have democratic 
sympathies without losing c^te. Like the warrior of 
Navarre, who, two centuries earlier, had done for France 
a work somewhat similar to that which he himself was 
doing for Italy, he had been nursed to hardihood as a moun- 
taineer and hunter, and had early learnt, by the discipline 
of evil times, to estimate men and things as they were, and 
not as they seemed when viewed from palace windows. 
Though of rougher speech and blunter manners than the 
' gentle Henry,' he too was loved by the common people 
whose welfare he had at heart and whose company he was 
always glad to share in war and in the chase. He, too, 
hunted women with as little rest or scruple as he hunted 
game. But, in other respects, Victor Emmanuel had great 
virtues. His personal and family pride, perhaps the 
strongest motive in all his actions, took a noble form, for it 
was his first rule of life to be the ' man of honour,' the 
galanUwmo in all his dealings — with his subjects, to whom he 
Imd sworn constitutional oaths, with Napoleon, with expec- 
tant Italy. He too often deceived, or allowed Cavour to 
deceive, perfidious enemies, but those to whom he owed 
an obligation, or who put their trust in him, never had 
reason to repent it. His courage was boundless, his good 
sense remarkable, and his Italian patriotism stronger than 
his religious devotion, with which it so often came into 
conflict. 

It soon appeared, to Cavour's astonishment and joy, 
that not c«ily was the master of France not alienated from 

1 Delia Rocca, 127-132, 



74 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

Italy, but that he had now at last decided actively to 
befriend her. His conduct towards the man who had 
tried to murder him is one of the strangest chapters of the 
fascinating and mysterious book of the psychology of 
Napoleon III. He permitted the trial to be so conducted 
as to become rather the apotheosis of a martyred patriot 
than the condemnation of a criminal. Though Orsini 
perished on the scaffold, it was in the odour of a sanctity cast 
about him by his executioners. The letter in which he 
appealed to Napoleon to win the gratitude of twenty-five 
millions of Italians by freeing their country from Austria, 
was not only allowed to be read in the most impressive 
manner at the trial, but was printed in the French papers, 
and even, at Napoleon's special request, in the Piedmontese 
Of&cial Gazette. Cavour, who had no sympathy with 
murderers anywhere, nor with conspirators outside dip- 
lomacy, was almost shocked at Napoleon's prostration 
before his would-be assassin, but since the publication of 
Orsini's letter was a direct challenge from France to Austria, 
he gladly printed it, and it remains perhaps the strangest 
document that ever enlivened an official newspaper.^ 

The reasons why Napoleon relented to Orsini and to 
Italy will always be open to conjecture. His enemies attri- 
buted all to fear of assassination, remarking that by a 
campaign in Lombardy he could make reparation for Rome, 
and so sleep at nights without dreaming of that single- 
minded Italian ferocity of purpose which otherwise would 
dog him to the grave. But those know little of Napoleon 
who think that fear or any other single passion or single 
object can explain his conduct in anything. If he had 

* ' Que Voire Majesie se rappelle que les Italiens, an milieu desquels dtaii 
mon pire, verserent avec joie leur sang pour Napoleon le Grand, part-out oit il 
lui plut de les conduire ; qu'elle se rappelle qu'il lui furent ftdeles jusqu' a sa 
chute ; qu'elle se rappelle que tant que I'dtalie ne sera pas independante, la 
tranquillity de VEurope et celle de Votre Majeste ne seront qu'une chimera, 
que Votre Majeste ne repousse pas le vcbu supreme d'un patriote sur les marches 
de I'echafaud ; qu'elle delivre ma patrie, et les benedictions de 25 millions de 
citoyens la suivronf dans la posterite.' La Gorce, ii. 349-353. BiancM, vii. 
403, 404, Chiala, ii. 540, 541. Marfinengo Cesaresco's Cavour, 129, 130, 



NAPOLEON AND ITALY 75 

been summoned before the throne of Omnipotence to give 
an account of his intentions, he could hardly at any moment 
of his reign have given a clear and consistent answer. He 
was at once a selfish and scheming adventurer who murdered 
liberty in his own country and protested against its natural 
manifestations in neighbouring lands, and a romantic 
idealist who wished to extend the principles of the French 
Revolution over Europe. The liberticide heard the cry of 
Poland and of Italy, which rose in vain to the ears of many 
who disapproved his tyranny in France.^ He was touched 
by the spectacle of Orsini's self-sacrifice, and remembered 
the day when, twenty-seven years before, he had himself 
conspired and revolted on behalf of Italian freedom. The 
Buonapartes were of ancient Italian origin. The founder 
of their modern fortunes had first leapt to European great- 
ness by his Italian campaign of 1796, and perhaps the 
purest and best result of all his mighty activities had been 
the resurrection of Italian life after two centuries of death- 
like trance. Was that resurrection now to be completed 
or to be suppressed ? And if military glory was to be one of 
the bases of the restored Napoleonic dynasty (' peace,' of 
course, was to be another), where could it be better won than 
in the plains of Lodi and Marengo, and in sight of the hills 
of Rivoii ? 2 

Such were Napoleon's personal aspirations, encouraged 
by his intimate friend, the Italian Count Arese, and by his 
cousin Prince Jerome Napoleon, who, with all his faults, 
felt a strong and disinterested enthusiasm even for the 
extreme idea of complete Italian unity.^ But, for the most 
part, Napoleon III. was served, surrounded, and maintained 

^ Greville, viii. 219, 220. 

2 Material for the fascinating study of Napoleon III. is most easily 
available in La Gorce'f fine work, and in OUivier's Empire Liberal. 

The best essay or. the subject in English is Mr. H. A. L. Fisher's Bona, 
partism (1908). 

^ Afese and Principe Nap. I call Prince Napoleon {Plon-Plon) ' Prince 
Jerome,' as he was usually called, though his real name was Joseph ; 
Jerome was also the name of his father (ob. i860) and of his elder brother 
(Ob. 1847). 



76 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

by reactionaries and Clericals. His wife, whom he had 
married for love, was a Clerical. His throne depended 
on the French Catholics, and the fixed price of their support 
was the defence of the Pope's temporal power by the armies 
of France. The story runs that Cardinal Antonelli was 
asked one day — ' When will the French garrison be with- 
drawn from Rome ? * ' When I withdraw my garrison 
from Paris,' was the reply. The flagrant contradiction 
between the terms on which Napoleon held his throne in 
France and his desire to liberate Italy involved him, during 
the remainder of his reign, in weak and crooked courses 
which led him to ultimate disaster. If he had been more 
far-seeing or less generous he would certainly have shrunk 
from stirring up the Itahan question. 

It was characteristic of his mind and method that when 
he entered into negotiation with Cavour for an offensive 
alliance against Austria, he did not dismiss the reactionary 
Walewski, but was content to deceive him, carrying on the 
most important diplomatic transaction of his reign as a 
profound secret behind the back of his foreign minister. 
Through the agency, first of Prince Jerome and then of 
the Emperor's physician. Dr. Conneau,i a meeting was 
arranged between Cavour and Napoleon at the quiet health- 
resort of Plombieres during the holiday season of 1858. 
On July 21, a single conversation, protracted for nearly 
eight hours, partly indoors and partly in the Emperor's 
phaeton among the wooded valleys of the Vosges, sufficed 
for the two men to adjust the fate of Italy. When the 
diplomatic world heard that Cavour had been at Plom- 
bieres incognito, there was some uneasiness, but the secret of 
what he had done there was well kept. 

The result of that long day's conversation was at once 
epitomised by Cavour in letters to General La Marmora 
and to the King.^ A suitable cause of quarrel was to 
be found with Austria, to give colour before Europe to a 
premeditated attack. Then 200,000 French and 100,000 

1 Principe Nap. 13. CMala, ii. 556, 557, 

2 Chiala, ii. 568-584 ; iii. p. xxxii. 



THE PACT OF PLOMBIERES 



n 



Italian troops were to drive the Austrians from Milanese 
Lombardy and from the Venetian Quadrilateral, and finally 
to dictate peace at Vienna. The Cisalpine domination of 
the Tedeschi was to come to an end. Liberated Italy 
was not, however, to be united in one state ; Napoleon, 
as a good Frenchman, could no more tolerate a united Italy 
than a united Germany — though by the irony of fate he 
was destined to be instrumental in the creation of both. 
By the pact of Plombieres Italy was to consist of a federa- 
tion of weak States, nominally under the Presidency of the 
Pope, really under the protection of France. Of these the 
strongest would be that of North Italy, under Victor 
Emmanuel, which would include Piedmont, Lombardy, Venice, 
and the Pope's Adriatic dominions. His Umbrian dominions 
would be added to Tuscany to form a Central Italian State, 
while he himself would retain Rome and the province in 
which it stood. Naples must be reformed, or, as Napoleon 
did not attempt to conceal, given to Lucien Murat. In 
return for these benefits Italy would cede to France Savoy 
and possibly also Nice, and Victor Emmanuel would be asked 
to give his daughter Clotilde in marriage to Prince Jerome. 

There were two miscalculations in this great plan. One 
was that the French and Italian forces were not strong enough 
to reach Vienna or even Venice. The other was that the 
French Catholic world would never allow the Emperor to 
despoil the Pope of three-quarters of his Italian dominions. 
Not only Napoleon but Cavour was still under some delusion 
as to the attitude of the Papacy. A month after Plom- 
bieres, Cavour sounded Count Pasolini, the old friend of 
Pio Nono in his more Liberal days, and learnt that there 
was no chance at all that the Church would consent to sur- 
render any part of her temporal power. And if she would 
not consent, Napoleon dared not be a party to her coercion.^ 

1 Chiala, ii. 225. Pasolini, 156-157, i6g. The Pope, In January 1859, 
told Odo Russell, the British Resident, plainly that he would not even con- 
sent that any part of the Papal States should be administered by laymen : 
the ' States of the Church 5 must be governed by priests. Queen's Letters, 
vol. iii. 397, 39S (Jan. 14, 1859). 



yB> GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

But if Cavour did not at first realise all the difficulties 
of executing the pact of Plombieres, at least he understood 
all the dangers that would arise if it were executed. It 
would substitute French for Austrian supremacy in the 
peninsula. Cavour desired this no more than Garibaldi 
or Mazzini, but he had the nerve to risk the new danger as 
the only possible way of getting rid of the old incubus. He 
hoped, not without reason, that he would somehow be too 
clever for Napoleon in the end, and that Italian patriotism 
would rise to the level of the occasion. In the interval 
between Plombieres and the outbreak of war he set himself 
to cultivate that patriotism in its most uncompromising 
forms, partly in order to strengthen his position against his 
too formidable ally, and partly as a means of provoking 
Austria to war. For this dual purpose he summoned the 
patriots of all the other Italian States to flock to Piedmont 
and enlist in the National forces. A secret organisation 
for smuggling young men over the frontiers was established 
by the National Society in almost every town of Northern 
Italy. Many thousands from Austrian Lombardy and 
Venetia, from the Papal States and the Duchies were 
enrolled in the Piedmontese regular forces, and in March 
and April 1859, 3,ooomore were formed into a small volunteer 
corps called the Cacciatori delle Alpi, to be commanded by 
Garibaldi.i 

By this policy of the enlistment of volunteers from all 
Italy, including Austria's own subjects escaped from her 
odious conscription, Cavour succeeded in provoking the 
war. In December 1858, he had told Odo Russell, who 
happened to be passing through Turin, that he would ' force 
Austria to declare war about the first week in May ' ; he 
kept this extraordinary promise with a week to the good.2 
He kept it in spite of the most adverse circumstances. The 
first four months of 1859 were perhaps the greatest, as 
they certainly were the most agonising, of Cavour's life. 

1 CMala, iii. liii-lvi, Ixxxvii-xcv. Venosta, 411, 412. Biamhi's Cavour, 
64. Bianchi, viii. 19. Arrivabene, i. 9, 
3 Quarterly, July 1879, p. 129, note. 



THE CRISIS 79 

On January i, Napoleon opened the ball by saying to the 
Austrian ambassador that he regretted to find his relations 
with Francis Joseph not as good as he could wish. Nine 
days later Victor Emmanuel introduced into his speech to 
the Parliament at Turin the famous words suggested by 
Napoleon himself ^ — il grido di dolore — ' the cry of suffer- 
ing that rises to our ears from so many parts of Italy.' The 
alarm thus fairly given, all France and all diplomatic 
Europe rose up in protest to prevent the war. Napoleon 
found himself deserted by the elements in French society 
on which his dynasty depended — the Catholics and the 
propertied classes — while the Liberals and Republicans 
could not be expected at once to put confidence in their foe, 
or to hail the prospect of his triumphant return as the Csesar 
of a victorious army .^ In England the Conservative ministers 
of the day, who pleased themselves with the belief that 
Italian grievances could be remedied without the expulsion 
of Austria, placed themselves vigorously at the head of the 
peace movement, but with a strong Austrian bias. They 
took their stand, wrote Lord Malmesbury, on ' the terri- 
torial arrangements of 1815, which have ensured the longest 
peace on record.' Most Englishmen, though more sym- 
pathetic with Italy and less well disposed to Austria, shared 
the ministers' terror lest this war should be the prelude to 
another age of Napoleonic conquest. Hostility to France 
at this moment damped our enthusiasm for Italy, just as 
six months later it served greatly to enhance it.^ 

' Chiala, p. iii. xxiii-xxv. 

^ La Gorce, iii. 396-401. Malmesbury, 148-153, 179. Chiala, Sioria 
Contemp. 3, 4. 

^ Br. Pari. Papers, 4, and Malmesbury, 147. Elliot, 7. This terror of 
France, with whom we had just been quarrelling, explains the inconsistency 
of the common British attitude to Italy in the spring and autumn of 1859, 
so amusingly exposed by Matthew Arnold in Friendship's Garland. Ruskin, 
though he despised the Italian Risorgimento, despised still more the English 
attitude towards the war of 1859. He writes on June 15 : ' The Italian 
nation is unhappy and unprosperous ; its trade annihilated, its arts and 
sciences retrograde, its nerve and moral sense prostrated together ; it is 
capable only of calling to you for help, and you will not help it. The man 
you have been calling names, with his unruly colonels, undertakes to help 
it, and Christian England, with a secret hope that, in order to satisfy her 



8o GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

France and England together were too much for Napo- 
leon's infirm purpose. He shrank before the storm which 
he had raised, threw over Prince Jerome and Cavour, and 
in the middle of April joined England in recommending 
that Piedmont should reduce her armies to a peace footing, 
while France and Austria similarly and simultaneously dis- 
armed. Cavour knew that in the state to which patriotic 
feeling had then been worked, an order to disarm issued 
in Turin would mean mutiny, revolution, anarchy, and the 
disappearance of the House of Savoy. To fall fighting 
Austria single-handed would be a better way to perish. 
For some hours Cavour contemplated suicide. He was 
found by his friends burning his papers, and he did not 
deny that he had had ill thoughts.^ 

But meanwhile he had left no stone unturned. There 
was still a desperate chance that Austria would refuse the 
simultaneous disarmament, and in this hope he had himself 
accepted it — though he could scarcely have intended really 
to fulfil the agreement. But meanwhile his provocations 
to Austria, consistently prolonged for so many months, 
had at last broken down the counsels of wisdom at Vienna. 
Austria refused the English proposals for simultaneous dis- 
armament, and on April 23 her couriers arrived at Turin 
bearing an ultimatum with three days of grace. Never 
were messengers of victory or of peace received with greater 
transports of delight. That night Cavour dined in triumph 
among the small circle of his intimate friends. On April 
27 Austria ordered her troops to invade Piedmont, and 
Napoleon, with the sullen acquiescence of England and 
amid the rising enthusiasm of France, came to the rescue 
of the peaceful little State against the wanton aggressor. 
Bismarck, in 1870, may have equalled but did not surpass 
this masterpiece of Cavour. England, angry with Austria, 

spite against the unruly colonels, the French Army may be beaten, and the 
Papacy fully established over the whole of Italy — Christian England, I say, 
with this spiteful jealousy for one of her motives, and a dim, stupid, short- 
sighted, sluggish horror of interruption of business for the other, takes this 
highly Cliristian position,' &c., &c. Arrows of the Chace, 13. 
1 Castelli, 82, 83. Chiala, ill. pp. cxxviii-cxxx. 



WAR DECLARED 8i 

angry with Napoleon, retired for a season, soon to re- 
appear under a new government and in a very different 
temper.i 

But Italy, rejoicing in her opportunity thus snatched 
frorh the claws of fate, confident in such a group of leaders 
as few nations have ever had at the crisis of their history, 
remembering her past failures only as lessons, and thinking 
of her dead as arising from their graves to watch, entered 
upon the two years of war and revolution which secured 
for her the right to be. 

' Bianchi, viii. 1-67, 482-490. Bianchi's Cavour, 63. Principe 
Nap. 19-27. Br. Pari. Papers, 4. La Gorce, ii. 425-449. Castelli, 84. 

' Though it is originally the wicked folly of Russia and France that have 
brought on this fearful crisis, it is the madness and blindness of Austria 
which have brought on the war now.' — Queen Victoria to the King of the 
Belgians, April 26, 1859. 



CHAPTER V 
garibaldi's alpine campaign, 1859 

Si scopron le tombe, si levano i morti, 

I martirl nostri son tutti risorti ! 

Le spade nel pugno, gli allori alle chiome, 

La fiamma ed il nome d'l Italia sul cor ! 
Veniamo ! Veniamo, su, o giovani schiere, 

Su al vento per tutto le nostre bandiere ! 

Su tutti col ferro, su tutti col foco. 

Su tutti col foco d' Italia nel cor. 

Va fuora d' Italia, va fuora ch' e 1' ora, 
Va fuora d? Italia, va fuora, o stranier. 

The tombs are uncovered, the dead come from far, 
The ghosts of our martyrs are rising to war, 
With swords in their hands, and with laurels of fame, 
And dead hearts still glowing with Italy's name. 
Come join them ! Come follow, O youth of our land ! 
Come fling out our banner, and marshal our band ! 
Come aU with cold steel, and come all with hot fire. 
Come all with the flame of Italians desire ! 

Begone from Italia, begone from our home ! 

Begone from Italia, O stranger, begone ! 

Garibaldi's Hymn. 

Towards the middle of December 1858, Cavour summoned 
Garibaldi, who, leaving Caprera, landed at Genoa on the 
19th, and spent the evening there with his friends of the 
Democratic party. Neither he nor they knew of the pact 
of Plombieres, but they already scented powder in the air. 
* Write me a hymn for my volunteers,' he said to Mercantini. 
The result of this commission appeared in ten days' time, 
in the shape of ' Garibaldi's hymn,' destined in the coming 
years to resound on the battlefields of Italy from the Alps 
to the Sicilian mountains, and to become in effect the 
National Anthem. ^ 

1 Guerzoni, i. 417. Mario, 231. 
82 



CAVOUR SENDS FOR GARIBALDI 83 

On December 20, Garibaldi proceeded to Turin and 
was taken by La Farina, the secretary of the National 
bociety, on one of his secret visits to Cavour. It was 
probably at this interview that Garibaldi was told of the 
important part assigned to him in a plot of Cavour's, soon 
afterwards abandoned, for beginning a revolution in the 
Carrara district in order to provoke Austria to war It 
was certainly at this interview that Cavour told him that 
he was to be put in command of a volunteer force to be 
raised among his own friends. Returning to Genoa he 
at once commissioned Bixio to begin privately enrolling 
names He sailed back to spend Christmas at Caprera 
telhng La Farma that a steamer must be sent to fetch him 
when he was wanted. A few days later, at the New 
Year, came Napoleon's pubhc warning to the Austrian 
ambassador.! 

At the end of February Cavour sent once more for the 
hermit of Caprera. The design of the Carrara revolution 
was being gradually abandoned in favour of an easier 
method of provoking Austria, the enUstment of her run- 
away subjects under the banner of Piedmont. Thousands 
were being drafted into the regular army, but Cavour's 
favourite scheme was the formation of Garibaldi's corps of 
volunteers. On March a, 1859, the decisive interview on 
this subject took place. Garibaldi had reached Turin the 
night before, and in the morning Cavour's confidential 
valet came into his study ' to announce that there was a 
man demanding to see Monsieur le Comte. " What i<, hi. 
name ? " " He will not give it ; he has a big stick and a bi^ 

le'com'te '' "<'lh\'' """J"^ '" appointment with Monsieuf 
1^ Comte. Ah ! said Cavour rising, " bring him in i '" 2 
The man entered, whose appearance had so much astonished 
the valet. His skm was tanned by wind and weather 
his hands were hardened with daily toil. His eyes 
' were surrounded by a network of fine lines. This had no trace 
• Paolucci, Pilo, 224, 225, ' Giorgio'sJ letter of December 2^ Gu...n. ■ , 



G 2 



84 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

of cunning, as is so often the case with wrinkles round the setting 
of the eyes, but was obviously the result of habitual contraction 
of the muscles in gazing at very distant objects. In short, 
Garibaldi's eyes, both in this respect and in respect of a certain 
steadfast, far-away look in them, were the eyes of a sailor.' i 

All was soon arranged between Cavour and his visitor with 
regard to the volunteers, and on the same day Garibaldi 
was taken to see Victor Emmanuel. The occasions, of 
which this was the first, when these two met face to face 
were nearly always pregnant with fate for Italy. And 
whenever they met, Garibaldi left the king's presence with 
an increased sense of loyalty and a more docile spirit.^ 

On this occasion indeed he required no royal persuasion. 
He returned that night, in the highest spirits, to Genoa, 
and there summoned about him the chiefs of the old Demo- 
cratic armies, the Republican and Garibaldian veterans of 
'48 and '49.3 It was in vain that Mazzini denounced the 
war, on the ground that 

' if successful, it will give Louis Napoleon a greater hold than 
he has ever had on the French mind through military glory and 
territorial increase. The Lombardo-Sardinian kingdom will be, 
morally, a French dependency. Through other, more southern 
schemed acquisitions, the Mediterranean will be a French lake.'^ 

This attitude, though it had much influence in London 
among the Italian exiles, had little in Italy, where the war 
fever was at its height. ^ The Garibaldini did not deny the 
danger pointed out by Mazzini, but strove to provide 
against it by giving to the ultra-patriotic forces an inde- 
pendent military organisation so formidable that Cavour 
would not feel the need to depend on France, nor the power 
to betray Italy even if he wished. Hardly one of the old 
fighting men but came to Garibaldi's call. Even Dr. 

1 TroUope, ii. 230 ; cf. Carrano, 163, 164. 

2 Mem. 276-279, Guerzoni, i. 419, 420. Chiala, lii. p, Ixxxix-xciv, 
Bertani, i. 3.22, 323. 

2 Bertani, i. 323. Mem. 276-279. Chiala, iii. p. xci-xcv. 
* Letter of Mazzini to Stansfeld, January 30, 1859, Shaen MS, 
' Mazzini, x. 238-242. Paolucci, Pilo, 224-233. 



FORMATION OF THE CACCIATORI 85 

Bertani, who had so long been Mazzini's agent in Genoa, 
undertook to organise the ambulance for the Cacciatori 
delle Alpi, as he had organised it for the defenders of Rome 
ten years before. Medici, who had fought in the red shirt 
on the Pampas and had held the ruins of the Vascello for 
three weeks against the French army, and Nino Bixio, 
who had been carried back from his wild charge up the 
steps of the Corsini and laid in the hospital beside his 
dying friend MameH, were both again ready to Garibaldi's 
hand.i Cosenz, Neapolitan by birth but Northerner by 
temperament, a quiet, modest and benign gentleman in 
spectacles, as cool in battle as Bixio was hot, already 
famous as one of the defenders of Venice, now entered 
Garibaldi's service, and was henceforth his good angel in 
pontics and in war. The Cacciatori were organised in 
three regiments, each consisting of a full thousand men 
and each divided into two battahons. The first regiment 
was entrusted to Cosenz, the second to Medici, the third 
to a less able officer, Ardoino. But one of Ardoino's 
battahons was led to battle, and would, if necessary, 
have been driven into the mouth of hell, by Nino Bixio— 
strangely popular with his men, although he was always 
falHng upon them with the fiat of his sword in gusts of 
bhnd anger which would soon have earned for any other 
officer a bullet in the back.3 The Kst of captains and 
heutenants of the Cacciatori delle Alpi is filled with such 
names as Bronzetti, Sacchi, Carrano, Piva, CadoHni, famihar 
in the history of the sieges of Rome and Venice and of the 
last stages of Garibaldi's retreat. 

In allowing Garibaldi to choose his own officers, Cavour 
showed that he was not afraid of ex-Republicans, or even 
of Republicans who were ready to fight for the king. It 

^ Trevelyan's Gar. Rome, 177, 186, 199, 200, 213. 

2 Nino Bixio' s constant apologies for his conduct in these matters, 
found in his letters to his wife during the campaigns of 1859-60, show 
that that lady was always doing her duty by taking him to task on the 
subject. Nino was adored by his family, among whom he was always as 
gentle as he sometimes was with his soldiers. See Bologna MSS,, Bixio ; 
and Risorg, anno, i., il, 338. 



86 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

had been his own device, suggested to him by no one and 
opposed by many, thus to create a force which should 
represent the idea of the national uprising as distinct from 
Piedmontese officialdom and the French alHance. If 
Garibaldi, the known enemy of Napoleon and the champion 
of ItaHan nationaUty, could achieve some romantic feats 
of war in the Alps, both the EngUsh pubhc and the Itahan 
Democrats would feel greater sympathy with the war and 
confidence in its author, Cavour.i fhe plan succeeded to 
perfection, owing to the valour of the Cacciatori and the 
genius of their leader, which made up for the lack of numbers, 
artillery, cavalry, commissariat, and good fire-arms. For 
of these advantages the volunteers were deprived by the 
jealousy of the War Office, of which General La Marmora 
was now the head. Cavour in those days was too busy to 
see to everything, and 2000 good carbines which he had 
ordered for the Cacciatori were sent after them too late, 
and distributed by a foolish official among the civic guard 
of Lago Maggiore.2 No horses or waggons were provided 
for the ambulance, so that Bertani and his staff of able 
doctors had to rely on the liberality of the inhabitants in 
the seat of war. There was no commissariat. There was 
no artillery, except a mountain battery that arrived too 
late to share in the principal achievements of the campaign. 
There was no cavalry except fifty guide, or scouts, who came 
on their own horses. Another similar, though probably 
inferior, corps, raised from the exiles of Central Italy and 
called the Cacciatori degli Apennini, was deliberately sent 
off under another command, contrary to the express orders 
of the king that all the volunteer regiments should be 
placed under Garibaldi. One good thing, indeed, the War 
Office provided — the services of General Cialdini, most 

^ Chiala, iii. p. xciv., xcv, Guerzoni, i. 421, 422. Venosta, 517. It is 
remarkable how the Times, hostile to Italian hopes In the early part of the 
year, on account of its fear of Napoleon, at once took up Garibaldi and 
his volunteers at the very beginning of the war, e.g., leading article on 
May 28. It saw in Garibaldi a way to combine friendship for Italy with 
hostility to France. 

' Carrano, 260, 261. Mario, ■Z'^'j. 



GYULAI'S DELAY 87 

enthusiastically rendered, to organise the three regi- 
ments in the depots; for Garibaldi himself was a bad 
organiser.! 

Fortunately these raw volunteers and their veteran 
officers had three weeks of active service with the regular 
army before they were called' upon for any great effort on 
their own behalf. When war was declared on April 27, 
Turin was in the greatest danger. General Gyulai, with 
over 100,000 Austrians ready to his hand, was on the banks 
of the Ticino, while the French were far away across the 
Alps. But Gyulai's not very acute mind was distracted 
by the precedent of former wars when Austria's safety had 
lain in the defensive, and in a judicious retreat to the 
Quadrilateral. He crossed the Ticino on April 29, and 
wasted three weeks, each worth an army corps to Austria, 
in futile and hesitating movements, while regiment after 
regiment of French infantry. Zouaves, and cuirassiers 
marched down the winding valley from the frozen 
summit of Mont Cenis pass, or came steaming up by sea 
to Genoa and thence by train into the valley of the Po. 
During this anxious period of waiting for the French, the 
entire forces of Piedmont, 60,000 all told, were concen- 
trated near the great river to defend the heart of the 
State. The Cacciatori delle Alpi served side by side with 
the regular troops, occasionally skirmishing with marked 
success on their own account, and enduring the frightful 
discomfort of the rain and floods, which were perhaps one 
of the minor reasons of Gyulai's inactivity. Garibaldi, as 
a subordinate, proved on this occasion the most ready 
and obedient of men, and won the hearty goodwill of his 
superior officers.^ 

When at last the French had arrived, and the aUies were 

1 Carrano, 171-179, 187, 188, 206, 207, 236, 260. Bertani, i. 338, 341, 
343, 348, 351. Guerzoni, i. 424, 425. Pol. 295. Mem. 278, 279. De 
Crisfo/oris, 267, 277. Mario, 236, 237. Conv, Marchetti. Peard MS, 7. 
Peard (Cornhill, January 1908), 107. 

2 Hohenlohe, 6th, 7th, and 8th letters. Camp. d\ It. E. M. Pr. 25, 
Carrano, iSo-226. Guerzoni, i. 429-435. Peard MS. De Cristoforis, 
280. Riv. Mil. It, December 1872, p. 482 ; January 1873, p. 214, 215. 



88 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

in a position to take the offensive, the Cacciatori were sent 
up north to invade Alpine Lombardy as a detached and 
advanced left wing of the army. Garibaldi was far too 
well pleased with this independent command and the chance 
of being the first liberator on Lombard soil, and he was 
moreover far too good a soldier, to utter in his men's 
hearing any discouraging complaint of the unprovided 
condition in which they were being sent on an errand so 
hazardous. 

The force which he led into the enemy's territory con- 
sisted of just over 3000 1 young men, each with an abomin- 
ably bad old pattern musket of shorter range than the 
weapon of the regular army. But at the end of each 
musket was fastened a serviceable bayonet, the weapon 
destined to win the little campaign. ^ The fifty rifles v/ere 
the private property of as many crack shots from Genoa, 
' gentlemen-merchants, artists and professional men,' who 
under the title of the ' Genoese carabineers,' formed a fine 
body of skirmishers, always in the forefront of battle. 
There was, besides, an excellent rifle in the skilled hands of 
the gigantic Peard — once the terror of the Oxford ' town ' 
— destined now to obtain, without seeking it, a European 
celebrity as * Garibaldi's Englishman.' But the other 
units of the division, not only miserably armed but untrained 
to shoot, and unaccustomed, as townsmen, to the mountains 
or, indeed, to great physical exertion of any kind, were 
required to take Alpine passes from the splendid Tyrolese 
sharp-shooters and well-drilled Croats and Hungarians with 
rifles and artillery. The task would have been impossible 
if the Cacciatori had been of the ordinary stuff that 
armies are made of, stirred only by the usual passions 
of war. But their ranks contained the very pick of the 
first families of Milan, ^ and were for the most part filled by 

^ Carrano, 236, Mem. 281. Cadolini, 10. Hohenlohe, i. 206. My 
rule in this work is to take the official report of each side (whether Italian, 
Austrian, or Neapolitan) of its own numbers, and not its view of the 
enemy's numbers which is generally exaggerated. 

2 Cadolini, 6. Peard {Cornhill, January 1908), 107. 

'■^ Mrs. Gurney Buxton tells me that in 1881 the following patois verse 



THE GARIBALDINI OF 1859 89 

Lombard students, artisans, landlords, professional men, 
and runaway school boys. They had been selected from 
among their fellows by the devotion with which they had 
risked, and the energy by which they had saved, their lives 
among the Austrian watchers on the frontier, for each one 
had stolen into Piedmont ' crossing the mountains and 
wading the rivers on St. Francis' horse' (viz. on foot). 
They were mostly men of education and of ideals. Their 
solid English comrade was astonished and touched to hear 
them round the camp fires entertain each other with long 
recitations of Tasso, Ariosto, and Alfieri. No youths ever 
went to battle with a stronger motive to conquer. They 
were fighting their way back as liberators to the homes 
from which they had lately fled like hunted criminals. 
They did not find the words of Garibaldi's hymn too high- 
flown for the occasion. They were to make their country 
and to avenge at last the long catalogue of her martyrs. 
Privately, too, each one was consumed with the remembrance 
of some story of injury and shame wrought on his family 
or his dearest friends by the rough and stupid soldiery of 
Eastern Europe. They had confidence in their veteran 
officers, and far more than confidence in their general, who 
was the god of their idolatry. The fear of his reprimand, 
of which he was never sparing either to individuals or to 
companies, was an ever present terror, while the hope of 
his measured and lovingly spoken words of praise, the 
certainty of seeing his calm face and hearing his low pene- 
trating voice in the midst of the decisive charge of the day 
were moral forces which would alone have made them 
superior to any ordinary regiment. 1 

was still being sung by the peasants along the shores of Lago Maggiore, 
celebrating the liberation effected by the Cacciatori of 1859 : — 
' Evviva Garibaldi ! 
Tutti i sciuri (signori) di Milano 
Li ong fa' scappa i Tedeschi 
Coir la handler' in mang ' (mano) . 
' All the gentlemen of Milan have driven out the Austrlans with the 
banner in hand.'* 

' Bertani, i, 357. Venosta, 432-441, 542. Times, July 26, ' A sketch 
of Garibaldi,'' written from the Valtelline. Mario, 238. Cadolini, 5. 



90 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

The red shirt did not appear in this campaign ; it would 
have been a gratuitous insult both to Napoleon and to the 
Piedmontese official party. Garibaldi himself was properly 
dressed as a Piedmontese general, though on the march he 
was seen to change his ' tiresome hat ' for a broad-brimmed 
felt, and to wrap himself up during the rain in the folds of 
his American puncio.^ But in the king's battles he always 
displayed the king's uniform. His men, dressed after the 
ugly, conventional pattern of the line regiments, had none 
of the theatrical picturesqueness of Rome ten years before, 
or of Sicily in the following summer. But on the eve of 
entering Lombardy, Garibaldi made them leave their knap- 
sacks behind and be content with as much linen and pro- 
visions as could be forced into their bread bags and into the 
large pockets which he caused to be sewn on to their coats. 
He thus gained that mobility which was the first principle 
of his method of war, but increased the difficulties of the 
commissariat and of food supply.^ Fortunately, in the 
country which they were about to invade, every household 
was passionately on their side. 

The Ticino, which divided Austrian Lombardy from 
Piedmont, issues from the Lago Maggiore in a broad, swirl- 
ing flood that no regiment could hope to ford. It thus 
offered, in continuation of the lake commanded by Austrian 
steamers, an easy line of defence against Garibaldi's un- 
supported infantry advancing from Biella. But he had at least 
an imitation of one other arm of the service in the fifty 
mounted scouts, and by great good fortune, their able leader, 
Simonetta, was a popular landowner in this very district. 
On May 21 and 22 Simonetta made a rapid tour in disguise 
along both the free and unfree shores of the lake, and 
although the Austrians laid an embargo on every stick that 
could float, and had their steamers on the look-out, he 
skilfully and secretly collected a number of barges at an 

Conv. Marchetti. Tupper, 6i. Peard [CornhiU, January 1908), 97, 107; 
and the whole literature of the campaign. 

' Carrano, 195. 

^ Venosta, 518. Cadolini, 14, 15. Carrano, 233. 



PASSAGE OF THE TICINO 91 

appointed place. This rendezvous was Castelletto, on the 
Piedmontese shore of the Ticino, three miles below its 
debouchment from the lake, and one mile below Sesto 
Calende on the opposite shore, where lay a slender detach- 
ment of Austrians. At Gallarate lay a single battalion, 
enough if properly used to have delayed the passage until 
immense numbers had been brought up from Milan. But 
the Austrians did not suspect Garibaldi of intending to 
pass the river. Their delusion was maintained by one of 
his most customary devices, for he ostentatiously ordered 
provisions for his troops at Arona and Meina, as if he intended 
to march northward along the Piedmontese shore of Mag- 
giore. As usual, his own men were equally deceived, and 
it was with surprise that they heard the order given on the 
night of the 22nd, just outside Arona, not to enter the 
town but to turn sharply to the right. They proceeded 
south by a forced march under cover of unusually thick 
darkness. The clock of Castelletto was striking midnight 
when the column, still ignorant of its destination, reached 
the top of the high bank above Simonetta's barges, and saw 
the faint gleam of waters through the trees below. Only 
then did they realize that they were to invade Lombardy 
before dawn. While the rear companies were still struggling 
through the brushwood of the steep incline down to the 
river's edge, a flood of moonhght suddenly burst over the 
long reaches and swirling eddies of the Ticino and lit up 
the busy and memorable scene. By that time the first 
companies, already on the opposite bank, were marching 
up in perfect silence and order to Sesto Calende, where they 
captured the fifty Austrians in their beds. In the grey of 
the morning the remainder of the division crossed, all in 
the highest spirits at being the first liberators on the soil 
of their own Lombardy. The inhabitants, ' who had gone 
to rest slaves and awoke free,' were prodigal of thanks and 
of such hospitality as they could provide, and would on no 
account accept payment. 1 

^ Milan MSS. Simonetta, 15-17. Carrano, 227-243. De Cristoforis, 
285-292. Peard {Cornhill, January 1908), 99, 100. CadoUni, 16-18, 
Mario, 238, 



92 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

Next morning, by five o'clock, the troops were already 
on the road for Varese. The weather was the loveliest of 
the early Italian summer ; the atmosphere had been washed 
bright by the recent rains ; the landscape and the people, 
both among the finest in Italy, were in gala to greet their 
deliverers. All day Garibaldi guided his men by intricate 
country roads winding in and out of hills green with chest- 
nut, oak and fir, across rivulets rushing between banks of 
flowers, along the soft and richly cultivated southern shores 
of Comabbio and Varese lakes, to the north of which rose 
the great mountain ridges. And everywhere as they passed 
from hay-fields and wayside factories and entrances of 
village streets, there poured out, with shouts of Viva 
Garibaldi, Viva V Italia, handsome and prosperous looking 
peasants, a cross between the Italians of the plain and the 
men of the higher Alpine valleys. As they neared the foot 
of the great hill on which Varese stands, the summer night 
descended, and the fire-flies danced among the moving 
columns, making the young soldiers laugh as one tiny spark 
after another settled in the bushy beard of their immense 
Enghsh comrade. Then, as they mounted the wearisome 
ascent to the ever-receding city, an Alpine thunderstorm 
broke in splendour upon them. Just before midnight they 
entered Varese under a deluge of rain, but it fell unheeded 
on the frantic joy of the people, who embraced the Gari- 
baldini in the open before they suffered them to take refuge 
under the fine medieval colonnades that flank the street. 
The city had revolted some hours before their arrival. 
Many a banner of '48, with the three colours long faded, 
like the dead who had borne them, had been pulled out that 
afternoon from holes among the roof tiles. In the autumn 
of that year of disaster, when Garibaldi had for a few weeks 
continued the lost war against the Austrians in this very 
district, he had passed through Varese on his way to the 
skirmish of Morazzone. That now, after eleven years, it 
was Garibaldi who had come back to deliver them made 
deliverance itself more enchanting. This welcome in the 
midnight storm at Varese was the first of a thousand such 



SPREAD OF THE REVOLUTION 93 

scenes to be enacted in the next two years round Pied- 
montese or Garibaldian liberators in more than half the 
cities of Italy.^ 

The revolution was spreading on all sides, and far in 
front of the Hne of march. As fast as the news arrived that 
Garibaldi was across the Ticino, townsmen and peasants 
ahke along the shores of Como, and up the Valtelhne to 
the very foot of the snows of Stelvio, drove out the Austrian 
police, formed revolutionary committees, and put themselves 
in touch with the King's Commissioner, EmiHo Visconti 
Venosta, whom Cavour sent after Garibaldi to take over 
the administration of the liberated districts. These patrio- 
tic and manly populations were the same as those which, in 
the spring of 1848, had left their mountain homes and 
marched to Milan in time to take their share in the ' five 
days.' 2 Now again, by their premature uprising, they 
risked and in some cases experienced the severe reprisals of 
the Austrians, of whom they were not fairly quit till after 
the battle of Magenta. These popular movements, though 
in Cavour's eyes of high political importance, were of little 
military service, owing to the lack of weapons. The search 
for arms had been the main part of Austrian poHcy for ten 
years past in these districts, where many a brave fellow had 
been shot for possessing a long knife or an old gun. Neither 
had the Cacciatori, themselves so badly equipped, brought 
with them the means of arming the revolution.^ 

Garibaldi had yet to make good his challenge to fortune 
in thrusting himself far across the Ticino so many days in 
front of the alhed army. He saw that Varese offered an 
admirable defensive position, and spent May 24 and 25 in 

1 Cadolini, 20. Mem. 285, 286. Carrano, 252-254. Peard [Cornhill, 
January 1908), loi. Descriptions of scenery in this book are a compound of 
contemporary accounts with my own notes made in walking over tlie 
ground described. 

- Readers of Meredith's Vittoria will remember the patriotic mountain- 
eers of the Valtelline ; the description of their action is quite in accordance 
with fact. 

^ Venosta, 469-492, 517. Carratio, 260, 291, 292. 



94 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

fortifying its approaches and resting his men. General 
Urban, who was coming to dispose of him, enjoyed not only 
a deserved reputation among the Italians for brutality, but 
a name among his own countrymen as a dashing commander 
specially fitted to cope with the famous guerilla at his own 
game. He was called ' the Austrian Garibaldi,' but the 
events of the next few days showed that he was a very 
Austrian Garibaldi indeed. i As soon as Gyulai heard 
that the Cacciatori had crossed the Ticino, he had sent this 
officer against them at the head of the brigade Rupprecht, 
consisting of rather more than 3000 infantry, and a full 
complement of artillery and cavalry. Urban advanced 
from Como by the Camerlata road, and attacked Varese 
from that side only, after detaching a column over the hills 
to his right in the vague hope that they would reappear at 
the critical moment on the north of the town. But they 
were not seen again, so that Garibaldi's force present in 
Varese was actually larger than the 2000 and odd infantry 
who attacked it, although the latter had the advantage of 
bringing artillery into the field.^ 

The scene of Urban's attack in the early morning of 
May 26 was Lower Biumo, a suburb lying at the north- 
eastern foot of the group of wooded hills on which Varese 
is so pleasantly situated amid its gardens and villas. In 
this suburb on the plain Garibaldi had stationed Medici, 
while he himself occupied the wooded hill of Upper 
Biumo not far to the north, the direction from which both 
he and Urban expected the approach of the lost Austrian 
column. Medici's men down below held a large villa and 
its little walled garden along the south of the Camerlata 
road, just outside Lower Biumo (the house is easily to be 
distinguished to-day by a bust of Garibaldi on its outer 
wall) ; on the other side of the road were some smaller 
houses, and a few trenches which had been constructed the 
day before. The Austrians drove in the Italian outposts 

1 Milan MSS. A. B. Migliavacca. Valle's V. G. U. 108-113, Storia 
Anedd. 119, 120. Avrivabene, i. 46, 47. Carrayio, 352, 

^ See Appendix B. below. Numbers at Varese and Como. 



BATTLE OF VARESE 95 

from Belforte farm, and thence advanced through a plain 
a mile long, covered with mulberry trees standing out in 
rows above the high corn. Their artillery unlimbered and 
shelled the volunteers in Lower Biumo at close quarters 
but without impairing their morale. Indeed, when the 
white-coats advanced to the charge, the young Italians, 
inferior in firearms, but superior in spirit to the enemy, leaped 
from the trench and from over the garden wall, and fell on 
them with the bayonet. The guns limbered up and were 
not seen again that day. As the sun sucked up the last of 
the early morning mist. Garibaldi, having satisfied himself 
by careful scouting that no column was approaching 
Varese from any other direction, galloped down from Upper 
Biumo and headed the advance ; Cosenz led down other 
bodies of Cacciatori from the hills on the south, and turned 
the left flank of the Austrians. They retired slowly, halting 
to fire behind every line of mulberry trees, and making a 
last attempt to rally at the fine old group of farm buildings 
on the knoll of Belforte. But soon the last of the white- 
coats had been cleared off the ground. 

The battle of Varese had cost the mother of the Cairoli 
the first of those four sons whose lives she gave for Italy. 
It was Ernesto, a young doctor of law, fighting as a 
common soldier; he was deeply mourned by Garibaldi, 
who already knew and loved the Cairoli family, the leaders 
of patriotic Pavia. The eldest of the five brothers, 
Benedetto, who alone survived the heroic era, though not 
for lack of exposing himself in the forefront of Garibaldi's 
wars, became prime minister of the country ransomed by 
his brothers' blood. 

The Austrian rout was complete, but there was no 
cavalry to follow it up. Part of the Cacciatori, unbreak- 
fasted but eager to go on when Garibaldi asked them to 
' see our friends a little further along the road,' pressed on 
with him over two more miles, down through wooded 
ravines and water-courses, up again through Malnate 
village, and across the cultivated table land beyond it. 
They were brought to a stop by the Austrian rearguard, 



96 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

rallied on S. Salvatore heights to cover the further retreat 
of the main body through Binago.i A deep gorge, with 
sides so steep that it was not possible to climb them except 
by clinging to the bushes, divided the Austrians from their 
pursuers. A first attack was repulsed, but the position was 
finally turned from the north, where the gorge was shallower. 
While the enemy's rearguard was evacuating S. Salvatore, 
Garibaldi gradually withdrew his men to Malnate and 
thence to Varese, as rumours that the lost Austrian column 
had been seen in the hills to the north gave him momentary 
fears for the safety of Varese. At midday he led his men 
back to the city, all in the highest spirits. Seeing Peard, 
who had used his rifle well in the thick of the battle, and 
had now walked the skin off his feet, dragging his heavy 
weight along the road, he spoke kindly to the Englishman 
and made one of his staff lend him his horse.^ 

The well-planned defence and spirited counter-attack had 
given the new generation of Garibaldini the needful self- 
confidence. But the battle of Varese, though a faultless 
piece of minor tactics, was no very wonderful feat of war. 
Next day, however, Garibaldi was to display his peculiar 
strategical genius at its best, in effecting the capture of 
Como from a force more than double his own. 

On the evening of his defeat at Varese, Urban telegraphed 
to headquarters that his victorious enemy had employed 
7000 troops that morning — more than twice the real number.^ 

• Peard (Cornhill, January 1908, 103, 104) makes it clear that this was 
the nature of the Austrian operations. Peard' s account talhes exactly with 
the ground, and is quite clear when once the reader perceives that he calls 
the village Malnate which is actually Binago. The real Malnate is between 
Varese and S. Salvatore. 

- My authorities for the battle of Varese are — Milan MSS. Simonetta, 
19-23; Milan MSS. A. B. Plico viii. No. 120, doc. 8, the three narra- 
tives (including Migliavacca) described in Bibliography, p. 372 below; 
Krieg, i. 370, 371 ; Camp, di Nap. 102; Mem. 286-292; Valle's V. G. U. 
65, 66; Peard {Cornhill, January 1908), 102-105; EIia,i. 229-233; Sioria 
Anedd. 121, 153; Guerzoni, i. 448-452; Cadolini, 23, 24; Carrano, 
268-281. 

3 Krieg, i. 373. 



AUSTRIAN DEFENCE OF COMO 97 

Gyulai was thoroughly alarmed as to the effect which these 
northern operations might have on his own position at 
Milan. The alHes might at any moment attack him in front 
on the Ticino with their main force, and meanwhile the 
Alpme districts on his flank and rear were rising, the 
steamers on Lake Como had been seized by the local rebels 1 
and Garibaldi would soon join them at the head of his 
victorious troops. Might he not then march on Milan at 
the critical moment of the struggle of the main armies on 
the Ticmo ? And would not Milan then rise as in '48 ? It 
was necessary to dispose of Garibaldi. That very night 
(May 26) Urban was put in command of three brigades— 
that of Rupprecht which had just been defeated at Varese 
and those of Augustin and Schaffgotsche, amounting in all 
to over 11,000 men.3 In the course of the morning and 
early afternoon of the 27th, all four battahons of the 
brigade Augustin had come up by train from Milan and 
joined the brigade Rupprecht for the defence of Como city 
Thus, although the third brigade Schaffgotsche was still on 
Its way, Urban had eight battalions of infantry, that is 
about 6400 men, besides artillery and cavalry, with which 
to hold Como against the 3000 Garibaldini, still unpro- 
vided with cannon. 3 

Como, lying low by the lakeside, is guarded from approach 
on the west by a line of forest-clad mountains, so steep that 
no troops can cross them except at two points, the pass of San 
Fermo on the north, and the town of Camerlata where the 
mountains end on the south. All that Urban had to do was 
to hold these two points with a force more than double that 
of Garibaldi. But he preferred to leave part of the brigade 
Augustin down in Como city on a level with the lake, where 
It was absolutely useless. He very properly massed another 
strong force to defend the approach to Camerlata, but he 
occupied the pass of San Fermo with only one or two 

^ Carrano, 291, 292. 

2 Hohenlohe, i. 206. Camp, d' It. E. M. Pr. ^7. Kriee \ q«-7 oSs 
Krieg {unofficial), 6z. ^^ ^^^^g-, 1. 387, 388, 

' Kneg, i. 387, 388 ; and see Appendix B, below, 



q8 garibaldi and THE THOUSAND 

companies of Hungarians, apparently not knowing that a 
city in a hollow must be defended on the hill tops.^ 

Garibaldi, advancing on the morning of May 27 over 
the battlefield of the previous day, marched at first along 
the main road towards Camerlata, as if he were about to 
attack the defenders of Como on that side. And there 
they continued to expect him, deceived by masking opera- 
tions of Cosenz at Olgiate, long after the main body of Caccia- 
ton had turned off northwards to the left. Guided by 
small country roads through a maze of wooded and vine- 
clad hills, the Italians arrived about four in the afternoon 
opposite the ill-guarded San Fermo pass flanked on each 
side by high mountains. As the Cacciatori passed through 
the village of Cavallasca they obtained a full view of the 
position which they were about to attack : a little valley and 
stream lay below them, and beyond rose the smooth slope 
of a hill, on the top of which towered the apse and campanile 
of the old church of San Fermo. This building on one side 
of the road and a little wayside inn upon the other were 
both crowded with Hungarians, whose rifles, projecting 
from long rows of loopholes, commanded the ascent from 
the stream. Flanking parties went out to right and left to 
capture the two hills commanding the church and village, 
and another company had Garibaldi's orders to charge up 
the road in front as soon as the firing began on the flanks. 
The leader of this company was the gallant De Cristoforis, 
a student and patriot of the very best type of that golden 
age of Italian publicists. Although he had already dis- 
tinguished himself in the little campaign, unfortunately he 
now neglected to deploy his men. 2 As they rushed in 
column up the road, they were checked by a terrible volley 
from the church and inn. De Cristoforis fell mortally 
wounded, and two of his officers were laid low at the same 
moment. But the flank attacks were meanwhile being 

1 jffneg, I. 387, 388. Milan MSS. A. B. Migliavacca, Storia Anedd, 
123, 124. 

2 Milan MSS. A. B, Migliavacca, De Cristoforis, 324 and passim. 
Ctierzoni, i. 456, note. 



BATTLE OF SAN FERMO 



99 



developed, the frontal attack was renewed, and the two 
weak companies of Hungarians were soon bayonetted, 
made prisoners, or sent flying through the rear of the 
village. 

The Garibaldini had thus effected a lodgment on the 
broad neck of the pass. When, now too late, large bodies 
of Austrians came hurrying up from Como and from other 
directions, a series of confused and petty actions raged 
among the vineyards and brushwood on the pass-top, and 
on the slopes of the wooded mountains at either side. The 
Italians fought chiefly with the bayonet, and Garibaldi was 
everywhere in the thick of the fight. The officers, ac- 
cording to the Garibaldian formula for successful leadership 
of raw volunteers, exposed themselves in the front of every 
danger. Cosenz led on his men, and Medici drove another 
division of the enemy southwards towards Camerlata. 
Bixio wrote to his wife next day,i ' Garibaldi gave his 
orders only by gestures, and our men cast themselves down 
like a torrent. I am living in a world of poetry {sono nella 
poesia) .' 

At last the Austrians gave way and fled down the ravine 
by the steep zig-zag road that falls for many hundred feet 
from San Fermo to Como. Halting on the edge of the pass 
the victorious Garibaldini could see the reserve of Augus- 
tin's brigade, like httle white specks far below, crawling 
about in the Piazza d' Armi outside the city, and their 
unused artillery standing in limber. Now came the moment 
for one of Garibaldi's great decisions. Was he to bid his 
men descend the mountain side and enter Como, into 
the midst of a more numerous but demoralised enemy ? 

' For some time,' writes Peard, ' a steady fire was poured 
down on the ravine from the height above, and just as the sun 
had gone down, and it was beginning to get dusk, the whole of 
the troops on our left were collected and formed in the high road. 

* Bologna MSS. Bixio, Como, 1859. (June 4 Is the date wrongly 
given in the Bologna copy, but the context and reference In the next letter 
show the real date Is May 28,) 

H 2 



100 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

' After a short time Garibaldi rode to the front with his staff, 
with the peak of his cap pulled down close on his eyes, the only- 
indication he ever gave of his thoughts being more intensely 
occupied than usual. It was as usual a barometer of his feelings, 
as the working of the stump of Nelson's arm. Slowly our whole 
body began to move. As we descended the wide road, darkness 
began to close in. Every one expected some hot work before 
we should be in Como, for they had seen the formidable column 
that occupied the Piazza d' Armi. As we got nearer what was 
naturally supposed would be the scene of a hand to hand struggle, 
the halts, though of only a few minutes' duration, became 
frequent. The men were careful in arranging the position of 
their canteens and anything that might make a noise. They 
seemed to step lighter than usual, for not a footfall was to be 
heard. The silence became almost painful. In this way the 
first of the houses of the suburb were reached. The inhabitants 
instantly, as the column advanced, showed lights at their windows. 
They began to cry " Viva Garibaldi," but some one would run 
over immediately and beg them to remain silent. We were 
rapidly passing the suburb. Where were the Austrians whom 
we had seen in such strength an hour or two before in occupa- 
tion of the place ? The suburb is passed. At the entrance of 
the city (Como) is a dense mass of figures with torches. Lights 
rapidly appear in all the windows, and instead of a storm of 
Austrian bullets the troops were met with a deafening shout, 
'' Viva Italia ! " " Viva Garibaldi ! " 

' The people were wild with delight. Men with torches 
marched on either side of his horse, and old and young rushed 
forward kissing his feet and clothes. Old men with tears 
streaming down their faces, and young girls threw their arms 
round our necks and saluted us as their deliverers. The up- 
roar was immense. The sound of the bells which were ringing 
in all the campanili, and music of the bands were drowned by 
the cheering of the crowds that were assembled in the large 
Piazza. Marshal Urban, with eight battalions,i a battery of 
guns, and some squadrons of Uhlans, had evacuated the city 
about an hour previous to our arrival.' 

It was indeed a happy night. Even the men whom Bixio 
had too often cursed and beaten with the fiat of his sabre, 

1 He had not really eight battalions in Como itself, but he had eight 
at Como and Camerlata together. 



OCCUPATION OF COMO loi 

came to tell him they loved him after having followed him 
in battle that day.i 

Urban was in full flight. Como and Camerlata were 
both abandoned in such haste that large stores of arms, 
provisions, and money fell a prey to the victors. 

' Not only,' writes the famous author of Letters on Strategy, 
' was Garibaldi allowed to occupy Como, but the Austrian flank 
and rear were so threatened that the entire first Corps was ordered 
to Milan, where it was to arrive a few days later. . . . Thus 
Garibaldi with 3000 partisans contained nearly three brigades 
of Urban's and the whole of the first Army Corps.' 2 

Garibaldi was well aware that Urban would shortly 
be able to rally his two defeated brigades at Monza and 
Milan, join them to the brigade Schaffgotsche and re- 
turn against him in overwhelming numbers. Meanwhile 
he had secured two or three days' respite by his victory of 
May 27, and he resolved to turn the breathing space to 
account.8 After conceding a needful day of rest at Como, 
he led his men back on the 29th through Varese, leaving 
the defence of Como city and lake to the local patriots and 
a detachment of Cacciatori. His objective was a secret from 
his own men ; he gave out that they were going to meet 
the small mountain battery which Cavour had sent after 
them. But when these guns had been found safely arrived 
at Varese, it appeared that the real object of the 
march was the capture of the port of Laveno on Lago 
Maggiore. Laveno was the base of the system of Austrian 

1 My authorities for the battle of San Fermo are — Milan MSS, 
Simonetta, 23-28 ; Milan MSS. A. B. Plico viii. No. 120, doc. 8, especially 
the Migliavacca MS. ; Krieg, i. 387, 388 ; Mem. 292-297 ; Peard {Cornhill, 
January 1908), 105-109; Conv. Marchetti; Elia, i. 234-238; Cadolini, 24-29; 
Carrano, 288-324; De Cristoforis, 318-338; Bertani, 1. 377; Guerzoni, 
i- 455-458 ; Bologna MS. Bixio, Letter from Como referred to above. 

2 Hohenlohe, i. 171. The Austrian writer of Krieg {unofficial), 64, 
says that another brigade was sent to secure Bergamo against Garibaldi 
on May 28 : '4 Brigaden, also ein voiles Armee-Korps, werden durch 
3000 Alpenjager paralysiert. ' 

^ Hohenlohe, i._ 179, 



102 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

navigation which still secured the waters of the western 
lake for the black and yellow flag, while on more eastern 
Como the red, white and green already held the waters and 
both the shores. On the night of May 30 the Garibaldini 
attempted to surprise the little fort defended by 590 men, 
and the steamers in the port below. One of the columns 
lost its way in the darkness and the surprise failed. The 
morning after this repulse from Laveno, the unwelcome news 
arrived that Urban, with his three brigades complete— over 
11,000 men— was in front of Varese, whither Garibaldi was 
retreating. All that he could now do was to go up into 
the skirts of the mountain called Campo dei Fiori— an 
Alpine ' Field of Flowers ' 4000 feet high— which over- 
hangs the city. Descending as far as S. Ambrogio, he 
remained there to protect the inhabitants at Varese, who 
had fled for refuge to the high perched village and pilgrim- 
age shrine of S. Maria del Monte. From that point of 
vantage the unhappy citizens watched Urban bombard 
their empty houses in Varese, as a punishment for the 
way in which they had received their Hberators.' 

Garibaldi had before him the prospect of being once 
more, as in 1849, hunted like a partridge in the mountains, 
though on this occasion the superior morale of his small force 
would enable him indefinitely to protract the campaign in 
the fastnesses of the Alps. It would be a sort of war which 
he was eminently fitted to conduct, but 3000 men could 
hardly be expected to defeat 11,000, unless Urban con- 
stantly repeated the error of dividing his force, now nearly 
fourfold that of his adversary. For the moment, posted 
as Garibaldi was within a few miles of Varese, he was in 
imminent danger of being overwhelmed. So, by a rapid 
and secret march over mountain tracks on the first night of 
June, he carried back his force to Como city, which had 
remained in the hands of the patriots. But at the same time 
Urban received orders partially to retire. For on May 30 

1 Cavrano, 324-356. Hohenlohe, 1. 179. Guerzom, i. 458-463. Krieg, 
I. 449-451, Camp, di Nap, 104-106, Nievo, 310, 311. Mem, 298-300. 
Valle's V. G. U. 101-113. 



ADVANCE ON BRESCIA 103 

Victor Emmanuel and General Cialdini had triumphed at 
Palestro. Urban, though recalled from the close pursuit 
of Garibaldi, was not brought down to the main scene of 
operations, and his 11,000 men were useless on the decisive 
day (June 4) when Napoleon crossed the Ticino and won a 
' soldiers' battle ' at Magenta. After the hard-won victory 
of the French, Gyulai evacuated Lombardy and fell back 
on the Venetian Quadrilateral, for which his unadventurous 
soul had been yearning during the days when he should 
have had no thought but to advance on Turin.i 

Some time on June 5 the news of Magenta reached 
Ganbaldi at Como. Grasping at once the new situation 
created by the great battle, he started on again that very 
night, his men acting as the detached left wing of the allied 
advance across Lombardy. During June 6 steamers crowded 
with the Cacciatori passed along the shores of the most 
beautiful lake in Europe, while the peasantry shouted and 
waved greetings of wild dehght from the water's edge and 
from chestnut woods high overhead. Rounding the point of 
Bellagio, the boats discharged their freight at Lecco before 
nightfall, and Garibaldi was thus already across the Adda, 
while the main army was only just across the Ticino. From' 
Lecco he pushed on to Bergamo and Brescia by a most 
dangerous route, parallel with the Austrian main army as 
It retreated towards the Quadrilateral. But he used his 
fifty mounted scouts with the same abihty and vigour with 
with which he had used his cavalry in the retreat of 1849.2 
He cleverly out-manoeuvred the Austrians at Ponte S. 
Pietro, and fought a spirited Uttle action at Seriate, where 
a single company under Narciso Bronzetti drove in rout 
a whole battahon of Hungarians.s In this way he arrived 

' Hohenlohe, i. 181-185, 200, 203. Carrano, 345-362. Riv. Mil. It 
January 1873, p. 228, 230. ' 

* See Trevelyan's Gar. Rome, 242. 

'Peard MS. 87-94. Carrano, 376-411. Guerzoni, i. 475,470 
fho""'/"/^.^"^'- .^^°°^^**^'^ extraordinary feat at Seriate, in defeating 
about 800 Hungarians with 100 Cacciaiori, may be partiy accounted fo? 
by the pohtical apathy of the Hungarians for the Austrian cause Signer 



104 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

safely, first at Bergamo and then at Brescia, the twin sub- 
alpine cities which shared the reputation, earned by terrible 
sacrifices in the evil years gone by, of being the most patriotic 
of the Lombard towns. 

On June ii, in Garibaldi's headquarters at Bergamo, 
Giovanni Visconti Venosta, brother of EmiHo the Royal 
Commissioner, witnessed a curious and characteristic scene. 
Half a dozen Austrian officers, captured in fight, were 
brought before the General. They came into the presence 
of the * red devil ' with the constrained resolution of men 
prepared for death. The troops whom they commanded, 
the ignorant peasantry of Croatia, used to tell their Italian 
captors how they had seen ' Garibalda ' in the thick of the 
fight atVarese and Como, with the bullets leaping off his 
coat like hailstones, and how they knew he ate the flesh of 
his prisoners.! Their officers did not share these supersti- 
tions, but they fully expected that the fierce guerilla, whom 
they had hunted to the death with his wife and friends 
in '49, would order to instant execution every Austrian 
whom he caught. When, instead, he rose to shake each 
of the six prisoners by the hand, with a word of commend- 
ation for their courage and of pity for their misfortune, 
Venosta saw their faces change to profound surprise and 
gratitude.2 

On the night of June 12-13 a dangerous forced march 
was made, in order to reach Brescia. While Garibaldi, 
skilfully avoiding Urban's columns, was winding his way in 
the darkness by a small track along the slopes of Monte 
Orfano, he suddenly drew rein and began to listen intently 
— for the distant sound of horse hoofs or of cannon, as his 
staff supposed. But, in fact, a nightingale had just broken 

Marchetti tells me that they found the Croats in this campaign always 
held out longer than the Hungarians. 

1 Marchetti Conv. Valle's V. G. U. 84 note. Carrano, 282. Cadolini, 
14. The Austrians called him the rothteufel in 1859 {Risorg. anno i, v. 
iioi note), although he wore no red shirt in this campaign. The name, 
I suppose, referred partly to his hair, and partly to their recollections of 
the red shirt in 1848-49, 

^ Venosta, 512, 513, 



BATTLE OF TRE PONTl 105 

into song over his head, and in a moment he had been rapt, 
in that moonht hour, into another sphere where the inner 
Ufe of his soul was spent, 

* Some world far from ours, 
Where moonlight and music and feeling 
Are one.' 

He sat long motionless, in a trance from which his followers 
were at last fain to wake him. In the morning they safely 
entered Brescia, after one of the most hazardous marches 
of the campaign.! 

At Brescia Garibaldi's independent command came to 
an end. During the approach of the allied armies to the 
southern end of the Lago di Garda, he continued to act as 
their advanced left wing, but under Victor Emmanuel's 
orders, no longer on his own responsibility. On the night 
of June 14-15, he was instructed from headquarters to 
advance on Lonato, and informed that he would be followed 
on the road by four regiments of cavalry and two horse 
batteries. Proceeding next day to carry out these orders, 
he found the Austrians threatening his right flank, but 
no sign of the promised cavalry. Pressing on himself with 
a portion of his force to Lonato, he was obHged to leave 
another part under Cosenz, Medici, and the rebel Hungarian 
Tiirr to defend the line of communications at Tre Ponti. 
This rearguard was shortly afterwards attacked, but after 
a successful defence it advanced and drove the enemy 
southward for two miles along both banks of La Lupa 
canal, until, arrived at Ponte S. Giacomo, it found itself in 
the neighbourhood of larger bodies of Austrians. Cosenz 
very properly ordered a halt, but Tiirr pressed on and 
became unnecessarily involved with a whole Austrian 
brigade. The gallant Narciso Bronzetti, the hero of Seriate, 
one of the finest of Garibaldi's officers, fell mortally 

* Dumas, I, 66,67, Stiavelli, i8i, 182. See Luzio in the Corriere della 
Sera, September 15, 1907, on the value of Dumas^ evidence, for such stories, 
based on Garibaldi's own MS. Mem. 306, with Carrano, 492, and Peard MS, 
92, show the date and circumstances of the march. 



io6 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

wounded. A hasty retreat began, and Garibaldi, galloping 
up to the firing from the direction of Lonato, met some 
of the men in full flight along the canal. His terrible 
anger soon recalled them to their duty, but though the 
battle was renewed with success as a defensive operation 
on the Tre Ponti ground originally occupied in the morning, 
the counter-attack successfully begun from that position 
had ended in failure owing to Tiirr's rashness. The belated 
arrival of the regular cavalry removed all danger from the 
situation. At this battle, as at Varese and Como, the 
Austrians admitted a loss of between one and two hundred 
men, but at Tre Ponti the Italian loss, counting prisoners, 
was certainly not less than theirs.i 

Garibaldi was next sent to Salo, standing on a deep bay 
of the Lago di Garda. Here, in full sight of the Veronese 
Alps and the heights of Rivoli across the lake, he made 
naval preparations for the passage, expecting to march 
through Venetia, as he had marched through Lombardy, 
the advanced left wing of the allied armies. His forces 
now first began to increase rapidly, and in a short month 
they rose to 12,000 volunteers. But before they had 
reached that number his high hopes had been dashed to 
earth, by an order from headquarters received at Salo, on 
June 20, to carry his force out of the seat of war into the 
remote Valtelline. Whatever the motives of those who 
gave the order, the Cacciatori were furious at being thus 
sent to the rear, at the first moment when they were becom- 
ing formidable in numbers. The Austrian invasion of the 
Valtelline was a chimera, as Garibaldi rightly supposed, 
and as the men who sent the order perhaps themselves 
suspected.2 The hostile force occupying the Italian foot 
of the Stelvio Pass did not require 12,000 Cacciatori to 
check its advance down the valley. In the first days of 

1 Carrano, 412-435, Guevzoni, i. 480-482, Peard MS, 95-99, Mem. 
307-309. Krieg, 1. 371 ; ii. 88-91, Elia, 1. 272-279, Mario, 242-244, 
Milan MSS., Simonetta, 48, 

2 I do not know whether the order was given in good faith for genuine 
military reasons, or to get rid of the Garibaldini from motives of political 
or professional jealousy, Is there any real evidence as to the true motive ? 



IN THE VALTELLINE 107 

July, Medici with the vanguard easily drove them out ol 
Bormio, and Bixio, following them up the pass, formed a 
chain of posts on the eternal snow, where during the brief 
remainder of the war the Italian and Tyrolese patriots 
stood watching each other on the vast white boundary which 
at this point Nature herself has set to divide the fatherlands 
of Hofer and of Garibaldi.i 

Giovanni Visconti Venosta, himself a native of the 
Valtelline, who had been named as Local Commissioner 
for the valley under his brother Emilio, had opportunity to 
observe there certain phenomena which soon became 
common throughout Italy. 

'When Garibaldi passed through a village,' he wrote, 'al- 
though he was not now wearing the red shirt, you would not 
have said he was a General, but the head of a new religion followed 
by a crowd of fanatics. The women, no less enthusiastic than 
the men, brought their babies to Garibaldi that he should bless 
and even baptize them. To these crowds that thronged him. 
Garibaldi would speak with that beautiful voice of his which 
was a part of the secret of his charm — " Come ! he who stays 
at home is a coward. I promise you weariness, hardship, and 
battles. But we will conquer or die." These were not joyful 
words, but when they were heard the enthusiasm rose to its 
highest. It was a delirium. The crowd broke up deeply moved, 
commenting on what the General had said : many had tears in 
their eyes.* 

The mountaineers of the Valtelline, who were no mere 
shouters like some of the more southern populations over 
whom he threw the same spell, enlisted in crowds, — 400 
from the small town of Morbegno alone. But Garibaldi 
himself was no great organizer. Venosta records how when 
certain contractors came to the General for his signature to 
their contracts he broke out : — 

* What ! These rascals who have the honour to clothe our 
brave young men who are giving their lives for their country, 
while they themselves are playing the coward at home, dare to 

' Mem. 3 1 1-3 1 5, Carrafio, 445-447, 453-496, Peavd MS, 100-119. 
i\ievo, 314, Cadolini, 34, 



io8 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

ask for contracts, agreements, signatures ? Is not my order 
enough ? Send them to the devil ! If they are not enemies, 
they certainly are not patriots.' 

They got their contracts, but the scene depicts the nature 
of the man.^ 

The Garibaldini, on their way to the Valtelline, had 
heard news of the great battle of Solferino, in which they 
thought they might well have been allowed to take part. 
The Austrians, who had retired beyond the Mincio, suddenly 
recrossed it, and on June 24 fought a last fierce battle for 
the recovery of their Milanese possessions. After a terrible 
carnage, they retreated once more and for ever out of 
Lombardy. But the French and Italians had suffered 
scarcely less than they, and the advance against the for- 
tresses of the Venetian Quadrilateral was delayed. A 
fortnight later came the news which crushed the hopes 
and roused the fury of Italian patriots from the Garibaldini 
in the Valtelline to the farthest Sicihan conspirators : the 
Emperors of France and Austria had met at Villafranca 
and arranged terms of peace. 

Garibaldi and his volunteers had played no decisive 
part in the war of 1859, which had been won by the regular 
armies on the battlefields of the Lombard plain. But the 
spirited little campaign in the wooded mountains round 
Varese and Como is a story dear to all true Italians, for it 
moves in that unmistakable atmosphere of the pure poetry 
of the Risorgimento. Nor is it wanting in technical interest, 
for it shows how far Garibaldi and his men were a match for 
the best Austrian troops under one of the most distinguished 
Austrian generals, and how far his detractors are right when 
they say that he could only defeat Neapolitans. The 
impartial student may well agree with the Prussian military 
historian in his admiration for the leadership which enabled 
3000 young volunteers, with old muskets and no cannon, 
to defeat twice the number of highly trained Austrians, 

* Venosta, 544-546. Rusconi, 67, 



ALPINE CAMPAIGN REVIEWED 109 

excellently armed and fully equipped with artillery, and 
thereby to draw away from the main seat of war three whole 
brigades amounting to over 11,000 men.i 

Yet the Alpine campaign is perhaps of most importance 
as being the field where the guerilla chief trained that 
small and peculiar force with which he accomplished the 
work of the following year. It was in the Alps of 1859 that 
the Garibaldini acquired those fighting qualities and that 
unbounded confidence in themselves and in their leader 
which enabled them in i860 to conquer Sicily and Naples. 

1 Hohenlohe, I. 200. He speaks indeed of Garibaldi's ' 3000 moun- 
taineers and riflemen,' but the 3000 were in fact neither riflemen nor 
mountaineers. 



CHAPTER VI 

VILLAFRANCA AND AFTER 

• Peace, peace, peace, do you say ? 

What ! With the enemy's guns in our ears ? 
With the country's wrong not rendered back ? 
What ! While Austria stands at bay 
In Mantua, and our Venice wears 
The cursed flag of the yellow and black ? ' 

Mrs. Browning, First News from Villafranca, 

Napoleon III. cannot justly be blamed for making peace 
after the battle of Solferino. If, indeed, the whole strength 
of France and Piedmont could have been devoted to 
the expulsion of the Austrian armies from the Venetian 
Quadrilateral, there would have been a good prospect of 
success after a bloody and protracted campaign. But 
whatever odds might be taken as to the result of a fair fight 
there was grave reason to fear that the ring would not be 
kept. Prussia was considering whether she should seize 
her opportunity and invade the Rhine frontier of France. 
Russia, whose friendship to France had hitherto held Prussia 
in check, had been aHenated by the popular risings in 
Tuscany and the Romagna, which gave the war a revolu- 
tionary character, and by the conspiracy of Napoleon, Cavour 
and Kossuth to raise the Hungarian nation in arms. For 
the fortunes of Hungary, which the troops of the Czar had 
helped Austria to suppress in 1849, always affected the 
pohtical barometer in Poland. The clerical party in France 
were growing openly restive at the course of events in Italy, 
particularly at the encouragement given to the rebelHon 
of the Pope's subjects in the Romagna. The French 
soldiers were discontented with the small amount of assist- 
ance obtainable from the newly liberated provinces of 



VILLAFRANCA in 

Italy. Napoleon knew that he might lose his throne as 
the result of a single defeat, and even if he had been ready 
to risk that personal loss, he surely had no right to expose 
France to Prussian conquest, in pursuance of schemes 
which, however generous, interested himself and Italy rather 
than France herself. Unnerved by the heat of the Italian 
summer, conscious that his own bad generalship had hitherto 
escaped punishment only by the worse generalship of 
Gyulai, horrified at the carnage he had witnessed on two 
hard-won fields, he had none of the self-assured and 
callous fortitude of the victor of Eylau and Borodino. 
Napoleon III. determined to avoid his Leipzig and Waterloo 
while there was yet time.^ 

But if the wisdom of making peace can hardly be chal- 
lenged, the terms hastily and secretly agreed upon at 
Villafranca by the two Emperors were monstrous. By 
those terms, not only was Austria left in possession of the 
Venetian territory still occupied by her armies, but the old 
Ducal and Papal despotisms were to be restored in Tuscany, 
Modena and the Romagna. These provinces had, during 
the last three months, one by one revolted and established 
orderly provisional governments under the protection of 
Piedmont. The foolish, kind, old Grand-Duke Leopold of 
Tuscany had never been forgiven for allowing the Austrian 
occupation in 1849, though he had managed to bring it to 
an end seven years later. When, in 1859, he refused to 
join in the national war, his subjects sent him off in a 
carriage to the frontier with good-humoured cries of 'a 
rivederci in paradiso,' 'good-bye till we meet in heaven.' 
That was at the end of April ; in June, after Magenta, the 
fiercer despots of Modena and Parma fled from their terri- 
tories with the Austrian garrisons, and the simultaneous 
withdrawal of the white-coats from Bologna was the signal 
for the rising of the Pope's Romagnuol subjects. The 
proposal of the signatories of Villafranca in the following 
month to restore the old rulers involved the return of the 

^ La Gorce, iii. 102-104. Ollivier, iv. 217, 218. Bianchi, viii, 142, 143. 
Mirimee, i, 52-56. Chiala, Pol. Seg. for Hungary, &c. 



112 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

armies of Austria, for a liberticide conquest of Florence and 
Bologna by French troops under the liberator of Milan was 
hardly to be contemplated. The treaty further mocked 
the aspirations of Italy by a proposed Federation of Italian 
States under the presidency of the Pope, in which Austria 
would clearly exercise a dominating influence. ' Perhaps,' 
wrote Napoleon's shrewd and cynical friend Prosper Merimee, 
* perhaps peace was necessary, but we ought not to have 
begun so well merely to leav® Italy in a worse mess (gachis) 
than before.' ^ If Piedmont had accepted these terms as 
final and satisfactory she would have gained Lombardy and 
perhaps Parma, but would have forfeited her headship of 
the patriotic movement, and the reversion of the rest of 
the Peninsula.2 

When Cavour heard that the French and Austrian 
Emperors had made, without consulting or even warning 
him, so cruel a settlement of Italy's claims, a life-time's 
habit of self-restraint fell from him Uke a disguise. The 
astonished world had a vision of the nether fires in the man, 
the furnace that drove the smooth and perfect engine, and 
learnt that the heart with which he loved Italy had been 
fashioned on the same scale as the brain with which he 
served her. For a few hours Cavour was more obstinate 
and frantic in the face of accomplished facts than Garibaldi 
in his most headstrong mood. He advised the king to reject 
the treaty and to carry on the war single-handed. When 
Victor Emmanuel refused thus to commit national suicide 
he flew into a rage, and after a violent scene between the 
two men, who always admired but never loved each other, 
he left the royal presence gesticulating wildly, his face ' red 
as a furnace,' his lips trembling, 'a singular and terrible 
spectacle ' to his friends. Victor Emmanuel, though bitterly 
mortified by Villafranca, kept his head during the perilous 
days of Cavour' s madness. With a juster perception of 
what Napoleon had sacrificed and risked for Italy, he con- 
tinued till the end of his life to feel a personal obligation to 

1 Olliviey, iv. 136, 269. Tvollope, ii. 217-222. 
8 Bianchi, viii. 154. La Gorce, iii. 108-112. 



CAVOUR'S FURY 113 

the man who had crossed the Alps to fight for him against 
Austria. 1 Knowing that it was impossible to continue the 
war alone, he put his signature to the treaty, but added the 
significant words of reservation—' so far as concerns myself ' 
{pour ce qui me conceme). He thus made it clear that while 
he consented to peace and took Lombardy as the price of 
peace, he did not guarantee the clauses which provided 
for the return of the despots to the revolted provinces. 2 

Meanwhile Cavour, still in the heat of fury, had mastered 
himself enough to be turning that fury to account. He 
had gone back to Turin, where on July 14 he met Kossuth, 
The two patriots had an equal right to complain of the 
peace, for Napoleon had sprung it on them both after 
fostering far other hopes. But the Hungarian was over- 
whelmed by the Itahan's passion and carried away an 
undying recollection of the terrible emphasis with which 
Cavour had exclaimed : — 

' This treaty shall not be executed. If need be I will take 
Solaro Delia MargheritaS by one hand, and Mazzini by the 
other. I will become a conspirator ' (striking his breast), ' I 
will become a revolutionary. But the treaty shall not' be 
executed. No ! A thousand times no ! Never, never ! ' * 

When Cavour said 'Never,' the negative prophecy that falls 
so easily from the mouth of smaller men was likely to be 
fulfilled. He had already sent in his resignation, but while 
the king was seeking a man to take his place, he continued 
to organize by his advice and encouragement the resistance 
set up by Tuscany, Modena, and the Romagna against the 
return of their old rulers. The newly-Uberated States had, 
according to French accounts, been lukewarm or at least 
ineffective in sending troops to the front during the war. 
Modena and the Romagna, which had got rid of the Austrian 

1 In 1870 he wished, out of sheer gratitude for 1859, to go to war for 
Napoleon against Prussia. Here we have the chivalrous and even quixotic 
knight-errant, whose family had ' held its head high for 850 years.' 

^ Chiala, lil. ccxvi-ccxx. La Gorce, iii. 115. Bianchi, viii. 148, 159, 

2 Leader of the Clericals in the Piedmontese Parliament. 
* Chiala, Pol, Seg. 50-57, 62, 72. 



I 



114 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

garrisons only in June, had not had time to levy troops, 
but the charge was in some measure true in the case of 
Tuscany, where the population was not warlike and the 
conscription was unpopular with the peasants, as it had 
been in 1848.1 But the inhabitants of all three States were 
prepared to fight rather than take back the old rigime. 
The Romagnuols, under the Piedmontese Commissioner 
D'Azeglio, began to organize at Bologna a force to repel the 
Pope's Swiss mercenaries, who threatened to reconquer the 
province for their master. Cavour's friend Farini put 
Modena in a similar posture of defence, and declared that 
if the Duke tried to return he would be treated as a public 
enemy ; on July 17 he received the following telegram 
from Turin, — ' The Minister is dead, but the friend greets 
you and applauds your decision.' At Cavour's personal 
instigation he remained at his post in spite of the orders of 
recall which as Piedmontese minister Cavour had been 
forced to send in accordance with the terms of Villafranca.^ 
Cipriani soon succeeded D'Azeglio as Governor of the 
Romagna. Neither he nor Farini were now Piedmontese 
Commissioners in name, but as Dictators they upheld the 
national flag until the time should come round when 
Piedmont could venture on annexation. 

Tuscany adopted the same policy in close alliance with 
Modena and the Romagna. Soft Tuscany needed a man 
to hold her firm, and she found for the purpose her own ' iron 
Baron,' Bettino Ricasoli, one of the half-dozen titanic men 
produced by the Italy of that period. Not unlike a Re- 
publican of our own Puritan Commonwealth in his personal, 
religious and political temper, he was as a rock planted, 
and Tuscany clung to him for ten months till the long- 
wished for day of annexation and union came at last.^ 

^ Ricasoli, Hi. 2-4, letter of Lambruschinl, April 28, 1859, says a con- 
scription will lead to a violent reaction for the old Duke. People wiU fight 
against him if he tries to return with Austrian troops, but will not endure 
a ' levy.' Ollivier, iv. 177, 

* Chiala, Hi. p. ccxxiii. and 109, 112, Bianchi, viil, 160-163. 

' A fine personal account of Ricasoli can be found in Countess 
Martinengo Cesaresco's Italian Characters, 



CAVOUR IN RETIREMENT 115 

Thus Cavour, before quitting office, had seen to it that 
Central Italy would continue, under strong but moderate 
leaders, to maintain liberty and order, and to demand un- 
swervmgly from diplomatic Europe nothing short of union 
with Piedmont. With the help of Ricasoli and the people 
of the Central Provinces, he had in a week laid down the lines 
of passive resistance to Villafranca, along which it was easy 
for his successor to continue during the next half-year. 

This done, Cavour retired for five months into private 
life. He spent the greater part of August 1859 in the quiet 
home of his friends the De La Rives, above the southern 
shore of Lake Geneva, where he soon recovered all his old 
sagacity and calm. ' His normal state came quickly back 
and with It came oblivion of the past now useless to con- 
template, new hopes, new designs, a newpoHcy, another plan 
of campaign.' So wrote his friend, WilHam De La Rive who 
watching and Hstening day by day, heard Cavour foretell 
two coming developments of poHcy, by which Villafranca 
could be turned from a curse into a blessing. 'England ' 
he said, ' has done nothing yet for Italy ; it is her turn now' ' 
And—' I shall take Naples in hand.' 1 

T^-^uT".'''/^^'^ England's turn now. Jealousy of France, 
which had damped our pro-Itahan ardour during the war 
after Villafranca urged us to outbid Napoleon for Italy's grati- 
tude now that he hung back, and to help build up an Italian 
btate strong enough to be independent of his protection 
It so happened that just a month before Villafranca there 
had occurred a change of ministry in England which enabled 
her to adopt the new policy fitted to the new situation 
A general election had been held in May 1859 but the 
result of an appeal to the country in those days was not 
always apparent till Parliament met, because many 
members m that easy-going period were independent of 
party ties and could make and unmake ministries by the 
exercise of their private judgment. The war was still 
raging, and the precise nature of England's neutrahty was 

' De La Rive, 400, 401, 



X t 



ii6 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

open to question, owing to the Austrian proclivities of the 
Derby Cabinet, which still held office pending the vote 
on the Address.i Hence not only England but France, 
Italy, and Austria waited anxiously to hear the result of 
young Lord Hartington's amendment to the Address, and 
when in the small hours of the morning of June ii, a 
majority of thirteen for the amendment was declared to a 
crowded house of over 630 members, the Piedmontese 
minister waiting ' with some other foreigners ' in the lobby, 

' threw his hat into the air and himself into the arms of Jaucourt, 
the French attache, which probably no ambassador, or even 
Italian, ever did before in so public a place.' 

When old Lord Palmerston appeared, grimly radiant, the 
Italians ' redoubled their vociferations.' 2 Their conduct 
wounded the feelings of the defeated ministers, and it 
certainly was neither proper nor considerate. They had for- 
gotten where they were. They were not thinking of the 
' ins ' and ' outs ' of Westminster, but of a tragic land of 
which only a few of that great crowd of free and comfort- 
able Enghshmen had any notion ; where but to think was 
to be suspect, to speak was ruin, and to act was death, 
where the talk at every table was hushed by the terror of 
priests and spies and foreign soldiers, where statesmen 
were chained to convicts, where women were flogged and 
men were shot. They were thinking of Italy, poor fellows, 
and so when they saw ' Pam ' they gave him a cheer. For 
there was the man who in his own rough, brutal way had 
so often told the kind of truth which statesmen and 
diplomats generally conceal, and now he was coming into 
power once more. In the doubtful twilight of that summer 
morning in the heated lobby they spied a dawn of hope for 
their country. And indeed she had won by that division 
more than they knew, more than ' Jaucourt the French 
attache ' guessed or wished. That had been the parting 
embrace of Italy and France. 

1 One of the last acts of the Conservative ministry was to send Henry 
Elliot to Naples with orders to dissuade the King of Naples from joining 
Piedmont In the war against Austria. Elliot, 7. - Malmesbury, 187. 



LORD JOHN RUSSELL 117 

A month later came the news of Villafranca. By that 
time the new Liberal ministry was well in the saddle. The 
* Triumvirate,' as it was called, of ruling spirits in the 
Cabinet consisted of three remarkable men, seldom united 
except about Italy, which was now their chief thought. 
Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell and Mr. Gladstone 
were each personally predisposed by generous Italian 
sympathies to the new course which interest and circum- 
stance mapped out for our country after Villafranca. In 
the game of stealing the gratitude of Italy from the French 
who had shed their blood for her, England started with 
three great advantages over her rival — she hated the Pope, 
she desired no territory, and she wished to see a really inde- 
pendent State in the Mediterranean. The Queen and Court 
and most of the fallen ministers were ranged in active 
hostility against the pro-Italian policy of the * Triumvirate/ 
and the majority of the new Cabinet was indifferent to its 
leaders' enthusiasms. But the bulk of middle-class opinion 
was strongly pro-Italian, and so was the more influential 
part of the press. The Times came right round in the 
middle of 1859 to strong and lasting Italian sympathies.^ 

When Pio Nono heard of the new ministerial arrange- 
ments in England, he said to Odo Russell in his mild, half- 
humorous, plaintive way — 

' Well, of course, you belong to his party, but, Poveri noi! 
what is to become of us, with your uncle and Lord Palmerston 
at the head of affairs in England ? . . . . Then again, Mr. 
Gladstone, who allowed himself to be deceived about the 
Neapolitan prisoners.' * 

Lord John Russell, the new Foreign Minister, was 
destined during the next eighteen months to be one of the 
principal instruments in the making of Italy. His part in 
that work, next to his part in the great Reform Bill, stands 
as the principal achievement of his life. Sir James Hudson, 

^ Queen^s Letters for 1859 and i860. Greville, viii. 305, 311. Bianchi, 
viii. 512-516. Russell^ ii. 312, Panizzi's Li/e, ii, 199. 
2 Queen's Lettei'S, July 17, 1859, 



Ii8 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

our minister at Turin, felt with joy a new hand on the rudder, 
and knew that the home government would now at last 
co-operate with him and listen to his sage advice for the 
good of Italy and for the honour of England. After Villa- 
franca Lord John at once took up the cause of Tuscany, 
Modena, and the Romagna, and opposed the restoration 
of their old rulers. During the half-year of Cavour's retire- 
ment the diplomatic struggle went on. ' The policy of 
Her Majesty's Government,' Lord John laid down, ' was 
not to interfere at all, but to let the Italian people settle 
their own affairs.' In consequence of our protest against 
French or Austrian interference with the doings of the 
populations of Central Italy, the terms of Villafranca 
could not be enforced. The gratitude of Italy was up for 
auction, and England ran up the bidding. Throughout 
the autumn of 1859 Napoleon became ever less subservient 
to the Pope, and more angry at his Holiness' refusal to 
make the slightest concession in the Romagna or elsewhere. 
The restoration of the old rulers in Central Italy receded 
into the region of the impossible, and the struggle shifted 
to this question, whether the revolted provinces should 
remain independent or be united to Piedmont. On this 
point Napoleon, fearful of any large step towards the 
union of Italy, still held out, declaring that he would never 
allow annexation. But Ricasoli, Farini, and the people 
whom they ruled would accept nothing less. Even in 
Tuscany, with its strong provincial tradition, the passion 
for national unity became almost as deep as the passion for 
freedom, thanks in no small degree to the insulting terms 
originally suggested at Villafranca. The deadlock continued 
all the autumn and winter of 1859, the Italian populations 
showing a firmness and patience which do not always go 
with exalted patriotism, and which, without the presence 
of Ricasoli and the support of England, would have 
degenerated into some form of weakness or violence.^ 

^ Br. Pari. Papers, 6 passim, 8, p. 2. La Gorce, iii. 168-174, Bianchi's 
Cavour, 76, 77. Bianchi, viii, 387, 388, 514, 515, 628, 629. Russell, ii. 
313. Ricasoli, iii. 158, 



GARIBALDI IN CENTRAL ITALY 119 

In the middle of this long period of ferment and inaction 
an important incident occurred in the life of Garibaldi. In 
August 1859 a close military union was formed between 
Tuscany, Modena, and the Romagna, and the forces of the 
League were placed under the command of Fanti, a Modenese 
exile who had risen to the rank of General in the service of 
Piedmont. Fanti named Garibaldi as his second-in-command. 
The primary object of the army of the League was defensive. 
In June, before the peace of Villafranca, the Papal troops 
had reconquered revolted Perugia and so kept down Umbria 
and the Marches, and they now threatened, in close alliance 
with the armies of the King of Naples, to invade and re- 
conquer the Romagna. The need for Central Italy to defend 
herself was therefore obvious, but the question which 
everywhere divided the counsels of patriots that autumn 
was whether the army of the League was merely to guard 
the frontiers; or whether it was to invade the Marches 
where the smouldering insurrection might at any moment 
break out, and thence to sweep over the Papal and Nea- 
pohtan dominions with the irresistible impulse of a national 
revolution. Passionate hopes were aroused when it was 
known that Garibaldi was Fanti's second-in-command and 
had been stationed by him in the region of Ravenna and 
Rimini, on the banks of that ' Rubicon ' which now again, 
it was said, divided the two Itahes.i 

Garibaldi brought with him from the Valtelline Cosenz, 
Medici, Bixio, and large numbers of his volunteers, eager to 
continue in the Apennines the war which had been cut 
short in the Alps. The Garibaldian programme, wrote Bene- 
detto CairoH on September 25, was ' not local defence, but 
national war.' 2 And the patriotic ardour of the Northerners 
was further stimulated by contact with the Romagnuols. 
That fierce population welcomed with transports of joy 
the man who had owed his life to their courage and fidelity. 

1 The ancient Rubicon was either the Uso or the Fiumiclno ; in either 
case It was really some fifteen miles north of Cattolica, the border town 
which actually divided the Marches from the Romagna, 

2 Milan MS. A. B. Plico X, 



120 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

He had said in 1849 that he would return in ten years, and 
now he kept his word,i for in September 1859, he drove 
through the pine forest and the marsh lands of Ravenna 
to visit in their cottages the peasants who had saved 
him and who had attempted to save his wife. He entered 
the farm where he had watched Anita die, and the 
neighbouring chapel where she now lay buried. Surely the 
time had come to avenge that day worthily by carrying 
the flag of freedom into the heart of the Papal provinces. 
The Romagnuols and the volunteers gathering round him 
from all parts of Italy called on him to lead them across 
the border. Mazzini, who had come to Florence in disguise, 
sent friends to urge him forward, and collected English 
money to buy arms for the impending invasion. The great 
conspirator was prepared to keep himself in the background, 
and even to forego the proclamation of the Republic, if 
only Garibaldi would advance and make Italy.^ 

At first Farini ^ and General Fanti lent themselves to 
the forward policy. On October 19 Fanti sent written 
instructions to Garibaldi that in case any province or city 
of the Papal dominions rose and asked for help, he was to 
cross the border at once. But Ricasoli from Florence, and 
Cavour's successor Rattazzi from Turin, represented that 
an attack on the Papal territory at this moment would 
mean war with France, or Austria, or both, and the ruin 
of Italy. Farini and Fanti withdrew their support from 
the forward policy, and urged the same prudent course on 
Garibaldi. The struggle in his mind was terrible, and with 
the weakness which he usually showed before coming to 
one of his iron resolutions, he changed his mind from hour 
to hour under the influence of those who had been with him 
last. On the night of November 12, Farini and Fanti, in 

^ Trevelyan'iS Gar, Rome, 283. 

2 Bianchi, vill. 179. Bixio, 139-144, Fam. Crauford, 180-190, 
King's Mazzini, 179-182, Melena, 66-90, Taylor MSS., Mazzini's 
letter of October 26. 

^ Farini this autumn became Governor of Parma, Modena, and the 
Romagna, united under the title of Emilia, because the Via ^Emilia ran 
through all three. 



THE KING AND GARIBALDI 121 

earnest conclave, extracted from him a promise not to 
invade. A few hours later they received a telegram from 
him, * The revolution has broken out in the Marches ; I 
must go to help it.' He was actually on the march, though 
the news of the ' revolution ' was an unverified, and in fact 
a false, report. Farini and Fanti, with a fine promptitude, 
successfully countermanded the invasion. 

Victor Emmanuel, indispensable on these occasions, 
sent for Garibaldi, and persuaded him of the necessity for 
patience. He laid down his command and retired to Genoa, 
issuing a manifesto in praise of the king as ' the soldier of 
national independence,' and in dispraise of the ' vulpine 
policy ' of his ministers. Medici, Bixio, and about a thousand 
volunteers retired with their chief, but his strenuous appeal 
prevented a general disbandment. The king, at their 
parting, offered him his shot-gun and a generalship in the 
Piedmontese army. Garibaldi gladly accepted the symbol 
of the hunter-king's friendship, but he refused the general- 
ship, though it would have relieved the poverty of his life as 
the gardener and shepherd of Caprera. By refusing any 
longer to wear the king's uniform, he left himself free for 
the great enterprise of his life in the following year, which 
could not have been undertaken by a royal officer.^ 

' The man,' wrote Mazzini when he heard the news 
of his surrender, ' is weak beyond expression ; and by 
subscribing himself "your friend" or patting his shoulder, 
the king will do anything with him.' 2 It was fortunate 
that it was so. If Garibaldi was as weak in the presence of 
Victor Emmanuel as Chatham in the presence of George HI., 
there was this happy difference, that Victor was generally right 
and George generally wrong. Italy had narrowly escaped dis- 
aster. It was impossible to attack the South before Tuscany 
and the Romagna had been annexed with the acquiescence 
of France. With the French armies not yet withdrawn from 
Lombardy, it was madness to defy their master and the 

* Rava, 139-142. Fanti, 287-296, Guerzoni, i. 491-505. Ricasoli, 
lii. 467-474. Panizzi, 404. 

^ Taylor MSS., letter of November 1859 (Ixxxiv.), 



122 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

Austrians at the same moment. But since Piedmont 
was not in a position to support an invasion of the 
Marches, her statesmen obviously should not have allowed 
Garibaldi to take command of a revolutionary force on the 
banks of the * Rubicon/ a river which he could seldom 
resist the temptation to cross. The error of sending him 
there can be compared to the error of choosing Gordon to 
effect the evacuation of the Soudan. The English and the 
Italian hero, as one who knew them both once said to the 
writer, closely resembled each other in many of those 
characteristics which set them apart from common men. 
Inextricably mixed with those high qualities was a tendency 
to obey the call of the spirit rather than the cautious orders 
of any mundane authority. Such men should be sent to 
the front only when the orders are to advance, and when 
those orders are not going to be recalled.^ 

Indeed, it appears that at one moment Victor Emmanuel 
himself had contemplated permitting the guerilla to invade 
the Marches on his own responsibihty.^ Although, on 
second thoughts, this plan was judged too dangerous, it may 
perhaps account for the original mission of Garibaldi to the 
Romagna. No doubt, too, his exemplary conduct during 
the last ten years had given the Piedmontese government 
a false sense of security in their dealings with him, for ever 
since the autumn of 1849 he had been so uniformly wise, 
moderate and obedient, that they had forgotten his earlier 
history. But Villafranca had destroyed his confidence in 
statesmen, and he now believed that he himself must some- 
times take the initiative. From the moment of this quarrel 
in the autumn of 1859, the long honeymoon of Garibaldi 
and the cabinet of Turin was at an end. There reappeared 
the more dangerous and intractable Garibaldi, whom only 
Cavour had the ability at once to use and to control. 

1 Anyone knowing the history and character of Garibaldi, and his 
relation to the Italian people and Government respectively, who reads 
chapter xxii. of Lord Cromer's Modern Egypt, will be struck by the 
parallel. 

2 Bertani, 1. 401, 402, the King's letter of October 29; Pam'm, 403^ 
Medici's letter of December 29 ; King, ii. 105. 



THE FORWARD POLICY 123 

But it must not be supposed that the poUcy common to 
Mazzini and Garibaldi of pushing the revolution southwards 
was mere folly. It is true that the year for liberating the 
Marches, Umbria, and Naples by force of arms proved to 
be i860, and not 1859, and that the best starting-place was 
Sicily, not the * Rubicon.' But Mazzini had reason on his 
side when he wrote from Florence in August — ' the revolu- 
tion that stops in one place is lost.'i He and Garibaldi 
were right in saying that Naples and the Papal territory 
should be attacked before the revolutionary ardour now 
raging throughout the Peninsula had been allowed to cool 
down. Garibaldi's great name held together a number of 
different parties, classes, and persons all bent on this forward 
policy, and without that policy and the union of men vowed 
to accomplish it, Italy would never have been made by the 
diplomacy of the Turin cabinet alone. No one was more 
convinced of this than Cavour. Already in August he 
had said to his friend De La Rive, ' I shall be accused of 
being a revolutionary, but before all else we must go forward, 
and we will go forward.' 2 

* Fam, Crau/ord, i8i, * De La Rive, 401^ 



CHAPTER VII 

NAPLES, 1859-MARCH i860 

' It appears that in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies the authority 
of the law is entirely set aside, and nothing prevails but that vague and 
uncertain arbitrary power which is justly said to be the sign of a miserable 
servitude.? — Lord John Russell to the British Minister at Naples, 
November 28, 1859. 

' Que voulez-vous faire avec un Gouvernment comme celui de Naples, 
qui s'obstine h, ne pas ^couter aucun consell ? ' — Napoleon III., May i860, 
(Biancht, viii. 659). 

Although the slight wound inflicted on Ferdinand II. of 
Naples by the fanatic Milano in December 1856 ^ did not, 
as has been sometimes alleged, cause the painful disease of 
which he died, yet the shock to his nerves and mind aggra- 
vated during the last two years of his reign the morbid 
fancies of fear and superstition. He appeared less than 
ever in public, the pohce system became more and more 
repressive, and he showered on the Church privileges which 
aroused resentment among even the most loyal of his lay 
subjects.^ 

Meanwhile he steadily refused to alleviate the lot of the 
political prisoners at the request of the English Conservative 
ministry, who desired, if only he would meet them half-way, 
to compose Lord Palmerston's quarrel with him and resume 
diplomatic relations.^ At length, in the winter of 1858-59, 
the rumour of the coming Franco- Austrian war in Lombardy 
frightened him into a grudging concession. A chosen batch 
of sixty-six Neapolitan prisoners, including Poerio, Settem- 
brini, Spaventa, and Castromediano were put on board an 

* See p. 67 above. 

- De Cesare, i. 175, 201, 202, 208, 441. Nisco, Ferd, II. 367-371. 
» Bianchi, viii. 112, 113. Nisco, Ferd. II, 372, 373. 

124 



NEAPOLITAN PRISONERS IN ENGLAND 125 

old sailing vessel to be taken across to America and there 
set free as exiles for life. The chances were not great that 
they would all finish that long journey alive, in a craft no 
less ruinous and unsavoury than their old dungeon at 
Montefusco. Fortunately Settembrini's son, Raffaele, came 
on board in disguise as scullion to the negro cook, raised a 
mutiny, and turned the vessel's head to the British Islands, 
where the whole party landed early in March 1859. The 
reception of the men whose names Mr. Gladstone's letters 
had made household words amazed and melted them after 
ten years of brutal usage. In the shouting crowd that 
thronged them in the streets of Bristol a poor girl thrust 
her last shilling into the hand of a very old man whose grey 
hairs had moved her pity ; it was the Baron Vito Porearo, 
and he forced back upon her his own last piece of gold. 
Their arrival in London occurring just before the outbreak 
of the war, when British feeling wavered between fear of 
Napoleon's success and hopes for Italy's freedom, was of 
real weight in the balance. ' Make the most of it,' was the 
expressive English phrase used by Cavour in his letter to 
the Piedmontese minister in London. That spring the 
Italian cause became fashionable in society. Ladies of 
high position learnt the language and studied the history 
and literature of Italy, while their husbands from West- 
minster met the exiles at the great Whig houses, and found 
them to be as fine fellows as Mr. Gladstone had painted 
them. The most important of the many links which the 
Neapolitans formed during their brief residence in England 
was the close friendship that grew up between Poerio and 
Braico on the one hand and Lord and Lady John Russell 
on the other — a friendship destined to have its influence on 
the crisis of the following year, when the fate of Naples 
was decided in large measure by Lord John.i 

King Ferdinand's policy had been more purely Neapolitan 

^ Settemhrini, ii. 458-466. Castromediano, H. 198-202, 230-235. 
Martinengo Cesaresco, 72-74. Lady Russell MS., her correspondence with 
Poerio and Braico, 



126 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

and less subservient to Vienna than that of his predeces- 
sors, but he knew the value of the friendship of Austria, 
and was especially anxious to bequeath it as a support to 
his foolish and feeble successor, his eldest son, Francis. 
He therefore determined to marry him to the Emperor's 
sister-in-law, Maria Sophia, daughter of Duke Max of 
Bavaria. It was her eldest sister, Elizabeth, the most 
beautiful of a beautiful family, who had by her recent 
marriage become Empress of Austria. 

And so Maria Sophia of Bavaria and Francis, Duke of 
Calabria, heir to the throne of Naples, were married at 
Munich on January 8, 1859, the bridegroom being repre- 
sented by proxy. The bride was wisely prevented from 
seeing her husband, her new home, or her new relations, 
until it was too late to repent, for the two were as ill- 
assorted a couple as reasons of State ever brought together 
in matrimony. She had been bred with her four sisters in 
a simple, free and happy home Ufe, partly in the Bavarian 
Alps, where they rode and climbed the hills, and partly in 
Munich, where it was their custom to walk unattended on 
their own errands. A girl so brought up might have been 
happy in England, but never in Naples. A dashing horse- 
woman, gallant and free in all her ways and speech, of heroic 
temper in war, as she was soon to prove before admiring 
Europe, she was no mate for the half idiotic youth whom 
Garibaldi was to dethrone, whom twenty-three years of 
hot-house education by Neapohtan priests and a jealous 
stepmother had deprived of any rudiments of sense and 
manliness that he may have inherited from his Savoyard 
mother. Judged even by his father's standard of strenuous 
tyranny, Francis was but a foolish Ishbosheth.i 

The young wife was brought down the Adriatic in the 
Neapolitan war-vessel Fulminante from Trieste to Bari in 
Apulia, where she was to see her husband and father-in-law 
for the first time. They, meanwhile, journeyed from 
Naples to Bari to do her honour, crossing the mountains 

1 Maria Sophia, 41-44, 79. De Cesare, i. 197, 199, 342-344. 



MARIA SOPHIA 127 

in mid-winter, over the bad roads covered by unusually 
deep snow, with the result that the king fell dangerously 
ill. It was a sorry welcome for the gay Bavarian bride to 
land on that shore of a dead civilisation, amid the fawning, 
suspicious crowd of priests and doctors, courtiers and police, 
whispering round the royal sick-bed their base conjectures 
of poison, and their sycophantic hopes and fears of coming 
change. The dying king sought and won the affection of 
his new daughter, but she had httle satisfaction from a 
husband whose chief outward characteristic was ' the 
peculiar expression of hfelessness that made him rather give 
the idea of an image than of a man. It was a wooden, not 
a marble statue, that his features called to mind.' 1 He 
could hardly utter a word to her, still less make any lover's 
advances, and seemed tied to the apron-strings of his step- 
mother, Maria Theresa. That formidable dame was not 
long in conceiving an aversion for Maria Sophia, with her 
freedom and her laughter. She ordered the girl to observe 
etiquette more strictly, to attend the religious services more 
often, and forebade her ever again to ride a horse — an 
accompHshment of which her husband was innocent. In 
growing misery they waited some weeks at Bari, till it 
was decided to return by sea to the neighbourhood of the 
capital, where the king could more easily be cured or more 
conveniently die. 

It was a tragic shipload that sailed on board the 
Fulminante. The unrepentant tyrant, dying in the agonies of 
a loathsome internal disease, lay in a cabin heaped with 
relics, images, and superstitious quackery of all kinds, 
gathered at his earnest desire from all over his kingdom, in 
the belief that they might help him where nature and the 
doctors had failed. Above on deck, in the air and the 
sunlight, the lovely girl of seventeen sat all day long on a 
gun-carriage, paying httle heed to the feeble attentions of 
her husband, but gazing at the sea, at Aetna and Aspromonte 
and all the passing pageant of the coast, steeUng her heart 

* Trinity, 201 ; cf. Elliot, g, 10, 



128 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

to the knowledge that she was caught and caged for 
life.i 

At length these unhappy people reached their royal 
palace at Caserta, fifteen miles north of Naples, and there, 
on May 22, 1859, Ferdinand II. was gathered to his fathers. 
His last instructions to his son, which had an undue influence 
on that conscientious and dependent nature, were to enter 
into no belligerent alliance either with Austria or Piedmont 
in the war then beginning in North Italy, to continue 
the existing policy of repression at home, and if a time 
of desperate crisis should arise to trust to General 
Filangieri, the conqueror of Sicily, as the ablest man in 
the kingdom. 2 

On the occasion when the new king received the homage 
of the grandees, a significant incident occurred. 

* As the Eeges passed before him they kissed his hand, which 
he did not take the trouble to raise, allowing it, when they 
had kissed it, to fall back by his side as if it had been the 
hand of a doll. , , . One very infirm old man caught 
his foot in the carpet and fell flat on his face to the feet 
of the king, who neither stirred to help him nor allowed a 
muscle of his face to move while the poor old fellow, 
awkwardly and with difficulty, scrambled up and passed him 
without a word from the king of condolence for his mishap or 
inquiry if he was hurt.' 

The scene left a painful impression on the Neapolitan loyal' 
ists in the room, and the British Minister, Henry Elliot, 
turned and said to his neighbour, ' That young man will 
finish badly.' ^ 

On the death of Bomba, England and France at once 
resumed diplomatic relations with Naples, and their repre- 
sentatives, Elliot and Brenier, vied with each other for the 
ear of the new monarch. Mutually suspicious and hostile 
as were the two diplomats,* they at least combined to urge 
amnesty and reform as the only means of saving the Bourbon 

1 De Cesare, i. 341-425. Trinity, 199-206. Maria Sophia, 8, 79-83- 

2 De Cesare, i. 435. Filangieri, 287. 

s Elliot, 10, ■• See Elliot, passim. 



COUNT SALMOUR'S MISSION 129 

throne. Piedmont also was at hand with a proposal which 
— were it possible to imagine it loyally accepted — might 
have led to a free Italy of two States instead of one. On 
May 27, 1859, five days after Ferdinand had breathed his 
last, Cavour dispatched Count Salmour to the court of 
Naples, with written instructions to negotiate an offensive 
alliance against Austria for the purposes of the war then 
raging in Lombardy. He was to point out that this adop- 
tion of the national cause in foreign policy would imply a 
change of system at home, an amnesty, and adherence to 
the constitution of 1848, which had been long ignored but 
never repealed. Cavour recommended that the internal 
changes should not go too fast, and that only men devoted 
to the dynasty should be employed. 1 

The news of the battle of Magenta on June 4 soon 
followed to lend weight to these diplomatic offers. The 
hopes aroused in the South by the victories in Lombardy 
took shape in demonstrations to which the streets of Naples 
and Palermo had long been unaccustomed. The time of 
crisis had already come, and Frajicis II., mindful of his father's 
dying words, at once sent for Filangieri and made him 
President of the Council and Minister for War. But unfortu- 
nately the views of the new Prime Minister were entirely 
inconsistent with the other parts of the late king's ' political 
testament,' for he recommended the introduction of a 
Liberal constitution which would enable the dynasty to 
lean on France instead of on Austria. The young monarch, 
thus called on to decide for himself which part of his father's 
self-contradictory advice he should prefer, stood in helpless 
distraction, pulled this way and that by his various advisers, 
male and female, while the system of government in the 
two Sicihes remained as he had found it, and forces both 
within and without the frontiers gathered head for the final 
explosion.2 

1 Bianchi, viil. 517-524 ; the date of these instructions is not June 25, 
as given on p. 517, but May 27, as stated on p. 126 (note). See De Cesare, 
ii. 40 on this point. 

- De Cesare, ii. 5, 6, 39-43. Filangieri, 290-292, 303-306. 



130 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

The chief personahties whose opposing efforts kept 
Francis for so long in this fatal state of equihbrium were 
Filangieri, Bremer, and Elliot i on the side of reform and 
the alUance of Naples with the Western Powers, while on 
the side of Austria and reaction were the Queen Dowager, 
Maria Theresa (herself an Austrian by birth) , and the whole 
court camarilla headed by Troja. That party were encour- 
aged by a visit of Count Buol, the late Austrian Minister 
for Foreign Affairs. Buol told Elliot that he found the 
people perfectly contented, that there were no grievances, 
and that he had been delighted to find that, after all, the 
miracle of the blood of St. Januarius was genuine. The 
credulity of this man, supposed to be one of the most 
experienced diplomats in Europe, is a testimony to the 
school that bred him. But the English diplomatists, as 
the dispatches of men like Elliot and Hudson show, 
were of a very different type, and were not accustomed 
to believe what they were told by foreign governments 
until they had tested it for themselves by some knowledge 
of classes and parties outside the walls of the palace. These 
admirable public servants poured into Downing Street 
from all the courts of Italy a constant stream of valuable 
infomiation and just comment. ^ 

The young queen, Maria Sophia, was a Liberal influence, 
and urged her husband to grant a constitution. But she 
was not a politician, and on coming to the throne was glad 
chiefly because she could now ride as much as she hked, 
laugh when she was amused at public ceremonies, and defy 
Maria Theresa's stepmotherly advice. With better treat- 
ment and greater freedom she was able to feel some dawn 
of affection for her husband.^ 

In political affairs the Queen Dowager retained over her 
stepson a great part of her old influence, although she had 

1 Elliot had originally been sent out by the Conservative government, 
in May 1859, to prevent Francis from allying himself with Piedmont, 
but next month the advent of Russell to the Foreign Office reversed our 
policy on this matter. Elliot, 7, 8. 

2 Elliot, 18-20, on Count Buol. Br. Pari. Papers, passim, 

3 Maria Sophia, 94-101. De Cesare, ii. 26, 27, 33. 



FRANCIS II. AND FILANGIERI 131 

been strongly suspected of an intrigue to place one of her 
own sons on the throne in his stead. Her sinister figure 
presides over the ruin of the dynasty and of the ancient 
kingdom ; Maria Theresa finished what Mary Caroline and 
Lady Hamilton had begun. With the help of Austria and 
the court camarilla she persuaded Francis to refuse both 
the constitution and the alliance with Piedmont. 

Like other weak rulers, Francis still hoped to please 
both parties. He still clung to Filangieri's person, while 
rejecting his policy. General Filangieri, Prince of Satriano, 
was by far the greatest subject in the kingdom. He had 
fought with honour in Napoleon I.'s great campaigns, he 
had served Murat well, and the restored Bourbons no less 
faithfully. He had reconquered Sicily ten years before, 
and had subsequently, as Governor of the island, attempted 
to introduce a milder regime, until the late king had quashed 
the attempt. The dynasty could still have been saved, 
and Filangieri was the man who could have saved it. But 
the new king refused to adopt his programme of reform. 
He thereupon offered to resign, first in July, and again in 
September 1859, but as Francis would not accept his resigna- 
tion, he had the weakness not to press it. He actually 
retained office without performing even its ordinary adminis- 
trative functions, which were deputed to others, while he 
shut himself up in his villa near Sorrento and refused to be 
seen. Only in March i860, did he at length receive his 
formal demission. 1 

During this long ministerial interregnum of the autumn 
and winter of 1859-60, while the man who was nominally 
chief minister had retired from pubHc Ufe, and the king was 
in his usual state of helpless distraction between opposing 
counsellors, the police governed the country on the estab- 
lished Unes. The remonstrances of Brenier and Elliot 
^^against the continued misrule availed nothing, but the 
stories which they sent home incensed Napoleon and 

' Accepting the facts given by Filangieri's admirers in De Cesare, ii. 
39-59, and Filangieri, 307-313, one may still think his conduct weak. 
See Mazade, 527, .528, and Nisco, Fr. II. 6-18. 



132 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

Lord John Russell respectively against King Francis, 
and thus prepared the diplomatic pathway for Garibaldi's 
invasion.! 

A royal decree for the relief of the tens of thousands of 
attendihili under police supervision - was promulgated on 
June i6, 1859, but Elliot discovered that it had been followed 
a few days later by a secret letter to the prefects which 
made it practically inoperative. ^ The police terrorism had 
never been worse than at the end of 1859 ^^^ ^^e opening of 
the new year which was to see the downfall of the system. 
Members of respectable families unconnected with politics 
disappeared mysteriously — having been snatched away to 
secret prisons merely in order to create abject fear. And 
indeed no one dared to complain. ' In the centre of the 
typhoon of terror ' there was a ' dead silence.' * 

It might be thought that a government so unscrupulous 
in its use of arbitrary power would at least deal effectively 
with real crime. But the camona was no less feared than 
the police, who themselves cringed before the dreadful 
society. 

' If a petition,' wrote Elliot,^ ' was to be presented to the 
Sovereign or to a Minister, it had to be paid for ; at every gate 
of the town Camorristi were stationed to exact a toll on each 
cart or donkey-load brought to market by the peasants j and, 
on getting into a hackney carrosel in the street, I have seen one 
of the band run up and get his fee from the driver. No one 
thought of refusing to pay, for the consequences of a refusal were 
too well known, anyone rash enough to demur being apt to be 
found soon after mysteriously stabbed by some unknown indi- 
vidual, whom the police were careful never to discover.' 

The Neapolitans crouched before their two masters, 
the camorra and the police who, as yet, acted in harmony. 
The distant Calabrian and Sicilian provinces, where alone 

1 See quotations at the head of this chapter, and Br. Pari. Papers, 15 
passim. 

2 See pp. 45, 46 above. 

'^ De Cesare, ii. 58. Elliot, 18. Br. Pari. Papers, 15, pp. 3-9, 31, 32. 
* Times, January 3. i85o. » Elliot, 12. 



THE NEAPOLITAN ARMY 133 

the spirit of rebellion was serious, were controlled by the 
army, now fully large enough to secure the Bourbons 
against the impotent hatred of their subjects. 

It will be well here briefly to describe the composition 
and character of the Neapolitan army, since the tale of its 
destruction is to play so large a part in these volumes. In 
1848 it had numbered 40,000 in reality, and 60,000 in name. 
But in the early spring of i860, some 90,000 men were 
under arms, and the total force, if the reserves were called 
out, would reach 130,000.1 This increase was due to the 
policy of Ferdinand II., who had found in the creation of 
a large army a safeguard against his subjects, and an occu- 
pation for his leisure hours. Although the chances of 
battle and the hardships of war had no charms for him, as 
he showed at Velletri, the pomp and circumstance of the 
parade ground continued to delight Bomba from the cradle 
to the grave. As a boy he had been found one day by liis 
grandfather, Ferdinand I., studying a new uniform for the 
troops : ' Dress them how you like,' said the cheerful old 
man, ' they will run away all the same.' 2 

This kingly utterance may stand as a criticism of the 
younger Ferdinand's lifelong efforts at military organisa- 
tion. His troops made a creditable appearance at reviews. 
The uniforms were good, the horses fine, the weapons 
excellent. In the army that obeyed his son in the spring 
of i860, rifles vastly superior to the Garibaldian musket 
were the ordinary weapon of the infantry. The cavalry 
were not only well mounted, but well rehearsed in the art 
of galloping up within forty yards of the enemy and 
wheeling smartly round again. 

Indeed, the only part of military discipline really enforced 
was the drill. But a form of discipline not usual in camps 
held good in this estabUshment — the discipline of confes- 
sion and of religious practice. Bomba was as careful of his 

1 De Cesare, i. 153. Rustoiv, 142. Cuniberti, 18, L' Ins. Sic. 77, 78. 
De Sivo, iii. 121. 

~^ Ds Cesare, i. 154. 



134 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

men's souls as Cromwell, with this difference among others 
that as morality was not a necessity to salvation in the 
NeapoHtan scheme of things, the soldiers were too often 
accompHshed rascals as well as hypocrites. Although the 
military floggings were of an unusually cruel and humiliating 
character, the men were kept Httle within the bounds of 
discipHne in time of peace, and in civil war they were 
encouraged to fight by the promise of free looting. In 
Sicily it was not an unknown thing for a soldier to take 
advantage of his excellent rifle to hold up a quiet EngUsh 
tourist and relieve him of his money.^ The inhabitants 
could not, like the Englishman, get redress for such outrages. 
But, when all is said, the Neapolitan rank-and-file were not 
without natural courage, and on occasions when they were 
led with any spirit, as by Filangieri and Bosco, they showed 
themselves worthy of those Neapolitan troops whom Napo- 
leon the Great had praised for their valour in the battle of 
Lutzen.3 

But spirited leadership was rare. It was commonly 
said that the inefficiency of the Bourbon army was greater 
in each rank than in the one below, till it culminated in 
the total incompetence of the generals. Non-commis- 
sioned of&cers were found with great difficulty, owing to 
political conditions and to the system of enlistment. The 
conscription for a term of four years with the colours and 
four more in reserve was so unpopular that it was not 
enforced at all in Sicily, and even on the mainland the 
middle as well as the upper classes were allowed to buy 
themselves out. The peasantry who were unable to escape 
service were among the most grossly ignorant in Europe, 
and it was difficult to select from them sergeants who could 
read and write. The non-commissioned officers, therefore, 
either were very ignorant, or else came of the middle class, 
and were liable, as such, to Liberal sympathies. It was 

1 Palermo MSS. Polizia, No. 1237, 4, 175, 60. Castelcicala's Report, 
March 31, i860. 

2 De Cesare, i. 159-162. Pianell, 15. Brancaccio, 209, 210. Titnes, 
June 21, i860, p. 9, cols. 4, 5. Rustow 146-150. Muudy, 163, 164. 



THE NEAPOLITAN ARMY 135 

observed in June, i860, that * three-fourths at least ' of 
those who came over to Garibaldi after the taking of Palermo 
were ' corporals and sergeants.' 1 

The same difficulty was experienced in obtaining com- 
missioned officers. The nobility was partly too effeminate 
and lazy, partly too Liberal, to take pleasure in military 
service like the nobles of Piedmont. The better men could 
feel no pride in belonging to such an army. It was not a 
national but a dynastic force. Its object was less to protect 
the country against foreigners than to police it against rebels. 
So complete a breach had been made with the fine military 
traditions of the Napoleonic period, that the men and 
the families who represented them were now almost all 
outside the service and frowned upon as malcontents. The 
spirit cultivated by Bomba in the army which he brought 
up with his own hand, was that of monks and police spies, 
not of soldiers. In other services besides that of Naples 
professional efficiency has not always been the road to 
promotion, but scarcely anywhere else has the commonly 
accepted standard of military honour and spirit been 
positively discouraged. In 1848 a young officer who wished 
to go to the front a second time was introduced to the king : 
' You have been to Sicily and come back with a whole skin, 
and now,' said his Majesty with undisguised astonishment, 
' you want to go and risk it again ! Madonna help you ! ' ^ 
The difficulty of obtaining enough good officers under such 
ccMiditions was insuperable, and the difficulty of obtaining 
enough officers of any kind was great. Consequently many 
had to be raised from the ranks, and they were not selected 
on any wise principle. There were officers who could not 
read and write, and some who had been common thieves. 
The average age of the service was far too high. ' A captain 
not grey-headed was quite an exception.' ^ The generals, 
if we exclude Nunziante, Pianell, and a few more, were in 

^ Racioppi, 33. De Cesare, i. 154, and F. di P, ciii. Times, June 21, 
i860, p. 9, col. 5. RUstow, 144. 
2 Brancaccio, 211, 212. 
* Times, June 21, i860, p. g, col. 5. 



136 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

their dotage, and seemed to have been selected on account 
of their notorious incompetence.^ 

In this force, conscious of its unpopularity with the 
inhabitants of the land, there was not even that internal 
harmony and sense of comradeship often bred by such 
isolation. Court favouritism and personal intrigue, carried 
on in the Neapolitan fashion, destroyed mutual confi- 
dence. While merit and zeal were neglected, ' the greater 
or less favour of superiors or of the sovereign ' was all in 
all. ' Egoism, envy, jealousy, intrigue,' writes Cava, a 
faithful adherent of the Bourbons who saw it all from 
inside the general staff, ' bore rule instead of the spirit of 
mutual support. Criticism degenerated into backbiting, 
and thence into calumny.' And not only were there division 
and mistrust between man and man, but in a marked degree 
between the various ranks and branches of the service. 
Jealousy and ignorance kept apart artillery, cavalry, 
infantry, engineers, and staff in mutually exclusive worlds. 
Privates, sergeants, and officers were ' three castes, separate 
and inharmonious.' Besides the divisions of army rank, 
there were the divisions of social status. The middle 
class, which might have held the whole together, was 
insufficiently represented. The nobles wrapped them- 
selves in aristocratic pride, and yet the peasants had — 
naturally enough under the circumstances — none of the 
British soldier's contentment at being led by ' gentlemen.' 
Against such an army a thousand picked men, moving with 
a common impulse under a chief for whom each would gladly 
die, might achieve astonishing results.^ 

In the year that intervened between the death of the 
old king, in May 1859, a-^^ Garibaldi's expedition, the 
Neapolitan army was brought up to its full complement by 
fresh levies,^ but on the other hand it was weakened in two 

1 Rilsiow, i/[^, 145. Cava, ii. 7, 8. De Sivo, ill. 118. De Cesare, I. 
154-156, and F. di P. ciii., civ. 

2 Cava, ii. 4, 5. De Sivo, iii. 119. Racioppi, 33, 

3 De Sivo, Iii. 120, 121. 



MUTINY OF THE SWISS 137 

important respects. In the first place contempt for the new 
king encouraged the revolutionaries to push their propa- 
ganda in the army, so that at the beginning of i860 lists 
of officers supposed to be well inclined to Italy were 
circulated among the patriotic committees : the artillery and 
engineers were the most disaffected branches of the service. 1 
Secondly, the Swiss regiments, the best in the army, were 
disbanded. 

These foreign troops were an integral part of the Nea- 
politan as of the Papal system of government. Monarchs 
who could trust few of their own subjects thought they could 
depend both on the loyalty and on the courage of Catholic 
herdsmen and mountaineers of the same breed as those 
immortal mercenaries commemorated by the Lion of Lucerne. 
The Swiss had, in 1848, taken a leading part in the success- 
ful operations in the streets of Naples and Messina. They 
were treated as a separate force with special privileges, and 
their pay exceeded by two-thirds that of the native soldier. 
Three of their regiments kept guard over the capital, while 
a fourth held Palermo in awe. But at the time of the 
accession of Francis the Swiss Federal Government, grown 
ashamed of the connexion between their free State and 
the worst tyrannies in Europe, requested that the cantonal 
crests should be taken off the banners of Swiss troops in 
foreign employ. When this unwelcome change was an- 
nounced to the Swiss in Naples a thousand of them, more 
proud of their native land than of their paymaster's service, 
and fearful of the abrogation of their other privileges, rose 
in mutiny on the night of July 7-8, 1859. They were 
quelled with promptitude by General Nunziante, with a loss 
of nearly a hundred killed and wounded. All four regi- 
ments were thereon broken up, and their actual departure 
from Naples and Palermo in August raised the hopes of the 
revolutionists both in Sicily and on the mainland.^ 

1 De Cesare's F. di P. cvi., cvii. De Sivo, iii. ii8. 

- De Cesare, i. 156, 157; ii. 15-20. Filangteri, 294-301. Rosi, 186. 
Nisco, Fr. II. 12-14. Palermo MS., Br. Cons., Goodwin's letters, 
August, September 1859. 



138 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

The Swiss had been disbanded at Filangieri's advice, 
but during the autumn and winter, when he had ceased to 
attend to affairs, the court devised a means of replacing 
them which he would heartily have disapproved. A con- 
spiracy was formed by Naples, the Pope, Austria, and 
the expelled rulers of Modena and Parma, to attack and 
destroy Piedmont and the League of Central Italian States.^ 
The government of Vienna ordered the Tyrolese authorities 
to give every assistance to the work of recruiting in their 
valleys for the Neapolitan army ; and Austrian soldiers 
who had served out their time, were sent by sea from 
Trieste to Ancona and the Neapolitan ports, and drafted 
into the armies of Pio Nono and Francis II. They were 
not, in Naples, accorded the old privileges of the Swiss, but 
became part of the regular army. They were known as 
the ' Bavarian ' regiments, a diplomatic euphemism for 
' Austrian,' which would have been the more correct 
description of a large number of the men.^ 

This combination against the newly-won freedom of 
Upper Italy made it the urgent duty of the rulers of Pied- 
mont, in self-defence if for no other reason, to destroy the 
Papal and Neapolitan kingdoms now leagued with Austria 
for their destruction.^ Neither party, given its principles, 
can be blamed for being the first to provoke a conflict now 
truly inevitable. Italy could not remain cleft in two by 
the Rubicon, * half slave and half free.' It was the same 
problem of ' a house divided against itself ' then becoming 
visible in the United States of America, where Abraham 
Lincoln had recently prophesied that one or other of two 
irreconcilable systems must extinguish its rival. ' The 
revolution that stops in one place is lost,' wrote Mazzini, 
and the advisers of Pio Nono and Francis II. apphed the 
same rule to reaction. 

While the influence of Filangieri diminished daily, and 

1 Bianchi's Cavour, 88-90. Bianchi, viii. 279, 280. Mazade, 525. 

2 Bianchi, viii. 279. Monnier (Ital.), 96-98. Mazade, 526. Br. Pari, 
papers, 6, p. 256 ; 7, p. 9-1 1. Times, June 21, i860, p. 9, cols. 5, 6. 

2 Treitschke, 182. 



VILLAMARINA'S MISSION 139 

the Neapolitan government drifted ever further into violent 
measures at home and abroad, the statesmen of Piedmont 
were closely on the watch. Their agents kept them well 
informed as to the real possibilities and difficulties of the 
situation in the South. On August 29, 1859, the Piedmontese 
Minister at Naples wrote home at great length, exposing 
the decadence of the Bourbon government since Ferdinand's 
death, and the relative ease with which it could now be 
overthrown by an attack from without. But he denied the 
probability of an unaided revolution from within. The 
people, he wrote again on November 26, were * cowed and 
disunited,' though hostile to the government; the recall 
of Garibaldi from the ' Rubicon ' 1 had delighted the court, 
* but not the country, which puts its hopes in him, lacking 
confidence in its own power to revolt.' 2 

In January i860, the Rattazzi ministry, seeing that 
Naples was becoming the storm centre of Italian poUtics, 
sent thither one of the ablest of Piedmontese statesmen, 
the Marquis Villamarina. The instructions which he took 
with him were to draw King Francis into a nationalist 
alliance with Piedmont against Austria, on a basis of moderate 
Liberal reforms at home.^ It was the same offer which 
Count Salmour had made at Cavour's bidding seven months 
before, and it was equally unsuccessful. The Bourbons 
refused to repent while there was still grace. The time was 
fast approaching when they should sue to Piedmont for 
this same alliance, and sue in vain. 

The mission of Villamarina was one of the last acts of 
Rattazzi's ministry. In January i860, Cavour returned 
to power to the intense joy of Italy, of England, and of 
Liberal Europe. The hour had come and the man. The 
curtain was rising on the second act. All was now ripe for 
the forward policy which would have been madness a few 
months before. Cavour, in his retirement, had watched 
the ripening of events — the passive resistance of Italy 

' See pp. 119-121, above. 

2 Rosi, 184, from the Turin archives. 

* B'ianrh!, viii. 274, 275, 643-650, 



140 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

to Villafranca, so impressively and patiently prolonged, the 
help rendered by England, and the alienation of Napoleon 
from the Pope. The non possumus attitude of Pio Nono 
towards revolted Romagna, and his ostentatious alliance 
with the most rabid Legitimists in Europe, and particularly 
with those of France, were rash acts of hostility to the 
French protector of Rome, who was primarily a usurper 
and a child of the revolution, even if he required the Clerical 
vote to consoHdate his power. At Christmas 1859, 
Napoleon punished the Pope and the Clerical party by the 
publication of the * inspired ' pamphlet, Le Pape et le Congres, 
which proposed in veiled terms to confine the Papal territory 
to Rome and the surrounding province known as the 
Patrimony of St. Peter. 

And so Cavour, even before his return to office, had 
often exclaimed, ' Blessed be the peace of Villafranca,' 1 for 
he saw rising the hope of an Italy larger and more inde- 
pendent than that which the Emperor had promised him 
at Plombieres . 

At the beginning of i860 Napoleon had moved so far as 
to be ready to sell his consent to the annexation of Tuscany 
and EmiHa (Parma, Modena, and the Romagna) . The price 
would be Savoy, and perhaps also Nice, the territory of which 
the cession to France was to have purchased Venice accord- 
ing to the unfulfilled terms of Plombieres. Cavour was, 
therefore, fully determined that the first great step of his 
new ministry should be to annex Tuscany and Emilia 
at once, at the price of Savoy. In relation to Naples, 
his policy was less definite. He would wait on oppor- 
tunity. But unless Francis accepted Villamarina's offer 
of alliance, he would certainly have no scruple in over- 
throwing the Bourbon dynasty if he could find the 
means. In a few weeks it appeared that Villamarina's 
offer was refused, and Cavour also became aware that 
Naples was forming an offensive alliance with the Pope 
and Austria.2 At the same time he secured the long 

1 Chiala, lii. 187. - Bianchi's Cavour, S8-91. 



CAVOUR AND NAPLES 141 

delayed annexation of Tuscany and Emilia, confirmed by a 
plebiscite of their inhabitants, and he thereafter felt free, as 
he had never done while that matter was still unsettled,! to 
hope for adventures farther south. And so in March i860, 
the attitude of Piedmont towards the Bourbons underwent 
a final change for the worse, clearly revealed to posterity in 
Cavour's secret correspondence mth Villamarina. 
On March 30 he writes to Villamarina at Naples : 

' Evidently events of great importance are preparing in the 
south of Italy. . . . You know that I do not desire to push the 
Neapolitan question to a premature crisis. On the contrary, 
I think it would be to our interest if the present state of things 
continued for some years longer. But ... I believe that we 
shall soon be forced to form a plan which I would like to have 
had more time to mature.' 

He therefore asks a number of questions as to the relative 
strength of parties in the Bourbon kingdom.^ The just 
analysis of the situation in Villamarina's reply of April 14, 
1860,3 contains the significant words, ' the king has the army 
on his side. I have written to you and I repeat, the govern- 
ment is strong, very strong for the purpose of keeping down 
the people.' 

Such was indeed the case. Force from outside was 
needed to defeat the Neapolitan army. But since the 
Powers of Europe, particularly France and Austria, 
would prevent Cavour from sending the Piedmontese 
regulars, the external force to be applied must be that of 
revolutionary bands, and there was only one man in Italy 
who could with any prospect of success lead a revolutionary 
raid against 90,000 regulars armed with good rifles and can- 
non. Fortunately that man, unlike some of the advanced 
Democrats who followed him, was stubbornly faithful to the 
programme of union under the Monarchy of Victor Em- 
manuel, and while the fame of his romantic deeds and 

' Chiala, iii. 209. Letter to Villamarina of February 11, i860, 

^ Chiala, Iii. 235, 236. 

■^ Chiala, iv. pp. cxxxv.-cxxxvii. Whitehouse, 181-1S5. 



142 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

character would serve to disarm much European indigna- 
tion against acts of international piracy, the unbounded 
enthusiasm which he aroused in England would ensure the 
benevolent neutrality of the Power who could open or close 
at her will the pathway of the Sicilian waters.^ 

* Mazade, 532, 



CHAPTER VIII 



SICILY 



THE REVOLT OF APRIL 4, 1860. ROSOLINO PILO AND THE 
HOPE OF garibaldi's COMING 

' Fratelli miei, la causa propugnata da me e dai miei compagni d'arml, 
non e quella di un campanile, ma quella dell' Italia nostra, da Trapani aU - 
Isonzo, dal Taranto a Nizza. Dunque la redenzione deUa Sicilia 6 la 
nostra, e noi pugneremo per essa con lo stesso ardore, con cui pugnammo 
sui campi Lom.bardi ! 3 

' My brothers, the cause fought for by me and my comrades in arms is 
not the cause of a parish, but the cause of our Italy, from Trapani to 
the Isonzo, from Taranto to Nice. Therefore the work of the redemption 
of Sicily is the work of our own redemption, and we will fight for it with 
the same zeal with which we fought on the Lombard battlefields.' 

Garibaldi's letter to the Sicilians, September 29, 1859, 

The island destined at this supreme crisis to be the 
starting-point for the making of united Italy, has a racial 
and social character of its own. Besides the early * Sicani 
and Sicuh,' of whose origin little is certain, the elements 
that compose the Sicihan people have come in historical 
times from the opposite extremities of Europe, from Africa, 
and from Asia. The inhabitants of the eastern end of the 
island are in part descended from the ancient Greek 
colonists, whose pastoral Uves and loves inspired the 
muse of Theocritus. The western end — especially the 
district between Palermo, Trapani, and Marsala, the scene 
of the exploits of Garibaldi and the Thousand — has been 
largely peopled from North Africa and from Oriental lands. 
For that north-western angle of Sicily, where Phoenician 
colonists were settled at the dawn of Mediterranean history, 
remained as the last stronghold of Carthage in its struggle 
for the island against Greeks and Romans. Possibly the 

143 



144 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

Phoenicians left little behind them. But the Arab occupa- 
tion of the Dark Ages, which succeeded to the rule of the 
decadent Byzantines, has left in that district its lasting 
impress not only on architecture and irrigation, but on the 
music, the customs, the faces, and the character of the 
common people. ^ 

In the ninth century Sicily was divided between the 
Mohammedan and the Byzantine-Greek religions." But, 
as a result of the Norman conquest which took place not 
many years after the similar event in our own island, the 
Roman Catholic Church gradually won ground. ^ In modern 
times Sicily has remained ardently Roman Catholic, and 
if the revolution of i860 had come thither with the anti- 
clerical programme which it avowed in North Italy, it would 
have received but little support. The movement against 
the Bourbons was shared by many of the monks, priests, and 
bishops, for it was the rebellion of one of the most insular 
of peoples against the foreign domination of the Neapolitans. 

The origin of this feeling against foreign mastery of the 
island goes back far into history, to the days of the Sicilian 
Vespers, that fierce event of which the memory was invoked 
with pride in the commonplaces of patriotic oratory. 
Brought up to believe that they had in all ages been wrong- 
fully subjected to strangers — Byzantine, Saracen, Norman, 
Angevin, Spanish, Neapolitan — the Sicilians had something 
of the Irishman's inherited quarrel with fate and govern- 
ment. They were frondeurs born and bred. The aptitude 
of the leaders for weaving nets of close and subtle con- 
spiracy, and the secret understanding of the whole popula- 
tion for the purpose of baffling the authorities, were even 
more marked than in the Italian States of the mainland. 
At times of crisis, as in 1820, 1848, and i860, they took to 
the more open methods of street fighting in the cities of the 
coast, and prolonged guerilla war on the hills of the interior. 
But they had a hatred for regular military service in barracks 

1 Freeman's Sicily. Corsi, 15-23. 

2 Amari Mtis. i. 197, 485-487. 

'"^ Gaily Knight, 25, 26, 124, 260-262, 332, 333. 



INSULAR FEELING 145 

or in the field, whether under the flag of the oppressor or of 
the Hberator. ' Better a pig than a soldier/ was a Sicilian 
proverb of the time.i The Neapolitan kings dared not 
enforce the conscription on their island subjects, so that in 
i860 hardly more than a tenth of their army was composed 
of Sicilians. 3 Consequently the garrison in the island was 
Neapolitan, hated as a foreign force in much the same way 
as the white-coats in Lombardy. 

This universal hatred of the alien government prevented 
social discord among the natives themselves. Though 
feudalism had been nominally abolished in 1812,^ a system 
of latifundia, with all the disadvantages and none of the 
advantages of the similar system in England, kept the 
peasants in abject misery. But many of the great pro- 
prietors joined with their tenants in the national movement, 
and were highly respected when they led against a common 
foe the popular feeling which has in later times been largely 
directed against themselves. Until after i860 there were 
no purely agrarian troubles, and the social question was 
scarcely posed. For although the poverty of the island 
was noticed then as now by every traveller, it was regarded 
by the inhabitants either as inevitable and natural, or else 
as the result of Neapolitan rule.* 

The revolutionary programme in 1848 had, in spite of 
some Mazzinian influence, been essentially insular. The 
expulsion of the Neapolitan troops after the street fighting 
in Palermo in January of that year had been followed by 
a declaration of the independent sovereignty of Sicily, 
and the empty throne had been offered to a younger son 
of Charles Albert of Piedmont. His refusal, necessitated 
by the Austrian reconquest of Lombardy, left the Sicilian 
patriots to carry on a provisional government as best they 

' Brancaccio, 248. 

2 Rustow, 144, 

"' Large farms In Sicily are often called ex-feudi. Before 181 2 they 
were feudi. 

^ De Cesare, i. 301-303. Conv. Tedaldi. For travellers^ Impressions 
of misery see Viollet le Due, passim ; Venosta, 274-283 ; Peard MS., and 
other journals of Garibaldini in i860. 

L 



146 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

might, amid increasing difficulties, such as the rooted anti- 
pathy' of the population to military service, the cry of 'the 
Church in danger,' the unsuppressed crime and disorder 
throughout the island, and the administrative inability of 
the high-minded men at the head of affairs. When at 
length Filangieri entered Palermo at the head of his victorious 
NeapoHtan troops on May 15, i849> though he was hated 
by all as a foreign conqueror, he was accepted by many as 
a restorer of social tranquilUty.i 

That able soldier and statesman, the surest prop of the 
Bourbon dynasty if it had . only been content to lean on 
him, was made governor of the island which he had subdued, 
and'he might, if left with a free hand, have done something 
to reconcile the Sicihans to their fate. But he was sub- 
jected to the control of the Minister for Sicihan Affairs at 
Naples, because the House of Bourbon, ever since 1816, pur- 
sued the fatuous policy of treating as a subject province the 
island kingdom which had been so loyal to their shrunken 
fortunes during the Napoleonic period. Filangieri found 
himself thwarted at every turn. He meditated a scheme 
for giving to Sicily— not railways indeed— but roads. There 
were, in 1852, just 750 miles of carriage-road in the whole 
island. Even the two chief cities, Palermo and Messina, 
were not linked by any continuous highway, for the middle 
part of the connexion was ' a mule track 42 miles long.' 2 
Travellers, therefore, went from the east to the west of the 
island by sea, except a few of the richer and more 
adventurous English tourists, who rode over the rough 
tracks, taking their own tents and provisions, for the 
food and lodging that could be obtained from the natives 
appear to have been more intolerable than they are 
to-day.8 Filangieri wished to amend this state of things, 
but his intentions were frustrated from Naples, and road- 
making was postponed till the Piedmontese era. 

1 De Cesare, i. 2-5. 

2 Palermo MS., Br. Cons., Mr. Goodwin's report of June 2, 1852. 

3 VeHosta, 276-279, the atory of three young Lombards who tried to 
travel in Sicily in 1853, 



THE RULERS OF SICILY 

147 
At length, in 1854, completely undermin^rl k r 
mtngues, he threw ud h\^\rr. ^^^^rmined by Court 
disgust.i ^ ^'' governorship and retired in 

But he had temporarily succepd^^ ,•« 
policy of concihation M^L "Jff.^^^^ ^" one part of his 

written of the Sid ian triil "L or "*' '" ^'^i. have 
Neapolitan, for the pScip^f feX" f '^^ -^^ °f 'ha 
escaped with the Ughter pLalty of °1 't. " ^''"'' 
worthy as a whole of the hiehmnr»I,^fr ^''^'^ ">«"■ 
set by Anaari and Ru^ero &H?m„ k"!!'"'*"^^*^"''^^'! 
and inexperienced tofoyern "tT', ^"T *°° ^™P'« 
scorned to enrich thenfseWes Men at the"; 'h' '^ -^^-^ 
and now endured the miserielof h= k ""^ °' ^'^^*^^- 
Paris, Turin, and Malt^wS^^ un^'wTT '" ^°"''°"- 

ciHa^ "SXcLlTrr r ^- ^"^^ '^-^^ «* -n- 
cicala. a ™an withoTa poiiov ir'T'^P "^^ ^^=*^'- 
the authorities gave no 'thought to ^vlt "" '"' "^=''- 
routine of repression and th/r. . f"^*""^ except the 
Maniscalco. Director of Polil^ t. ''»' '""^ '^'^"^ --^ 
whose ability Filangieri had disc^ red"ai7''"'^' °*^^^' 
promotion, made hhnself the termrof ^r r 7"'^"'' "'* 
the criminal population, who wSe tol ofl ^'^''^ ^""^ "^^ 
the unquiet mountain districts rf the ,°/ ^^^"'^'ated in- 
common persecution by government M '' 7'°^ *° "'^'^ 
useful force of Sicihan m'ountT;:Le mo" tlv " k"'"^'' ^ 
known as the Compagni d'armi bPtw«Ti^ ex-bngands, 
old friends than wfr/the N^t^om frX^ "^^'^ *''- 
The count:, was effectively gaggef^^, „^^^^^^^^ 

' -De Cesare, I. 12, ja o,.,^ ^o 
^908). 818, 819. ^ ^^' ^^^"^7. 57-59, 301. P^a^rf (Cornhill, June 

^ Whitaker, 2A<i et ^i^n a^ ■ ^ 



L 2 



148 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

was allowed to circulate except the official Gionwte ii 
SiciUa. The real news had to be obtained by borrowing 
the foreign papers from the Consuls of other countries who 
alone could receive them,> or by assembling cautiously m 
parties of two or three at the chemist's, the usual meeting 
olace of the Liberals.!^ The scorn of even the Austrian 
authorities was aroused against the Southern police who 
hindered or prohibited journeys of Itahans m Sicily,^ who 
shaved off men's beards and seized their black Lombardy 
hats as seditious,* and interfered with music parties of five 
or six persons.' Of the upper class, some were passively on 
the side of Government, but another and more active 
section put themselves at the head of the artisan and 
peasant classes, who were universally hostile to the Nea- 
nnlitan rule There was no reactionary party among the 
S ants t 'there was on the mainland. ' When shall we 
be rid of this infamous yoke ? ' was constantly ejaculated.^ 

It may seem strange that the Unitarian party among f.he 
Sicilians should have been able to use the outraged insular 
pride of their fellow-countrymen as the means of creating 
popular enthusiasm for absorption in the larger Italy and 
annexation to the crown of Victor Emmanuel. But the 
experience of 1848 had taught the Sicihans that, since they 
3d not themilves become soldiers, they could not'^P^ 
to effect their own permanent emancipation from Naples. 
They therefore began to look to Garibaldi to deliver them, 
and to the Piedmontese armaments to protect them from 
^conquest. Neither were men like Amari, La Fanna, 
Crisp' and the educated classes in general, exclusivdy 
in Sar in their ideas. They held that annexation to he 
new Italy would satisfy their desire to participate m the 

1 c- .•„ ,8 Colonel Tedaldi tells me that his father had Wm taught 
Engli^T'orL Ct should he able to read the Morni., Fos, of the 
British Consul. 

'": ¥L';»...-«. .. X87. ff '-«•;/- ^°- "^'f,.S„,1l!x,.''^ 

Cesare, ii. i93- 



THE UNITARIAN MOVEMENT 149 

wider Italian culture, which was after all the most valuable 
element m modern Sicihan civilization, and the real influence 
that had since the Middle Ages fused into one the different 
races mhabiting the island. They rightly supposed that 
union with Italy would give that culture room to expand 
when freedom of press and person had once been estabhshed • 
that It would yield them, at least in some degree, the sense 
of being masters in their own island ; that it would bring 
roads and railways, attract capital and commerce, and put 
them m touch with the outside world shut off from them by 
the Bourbon police system. And not a few wrongly supposed 
that these benefits would be obtained without higher taxa- 
tion and mihtary burdens, and would at once relieve the 
moral and economic poverty of the land. But the desire to 
be united to Italy did not become general until 1859 ^ 

From 1850 to 1858 the threads of conspiracy throughout 
the island were in the hands of the partisans of Mazzini. In 
proportion as his influence was superseded in Northern 
Italy, he directed the efforts of his remaining friends to the 
Sicihan field, neglected by other parties. His Unitarian 
and Repubhcan ideas inspired Bentivegna, who gladly gave 
away his life in the winter of 1856 by raising a hopeless 
rebelhon near Cefalu.^ Mazzini's principal agents for the 
affairs of the South were the Sicihan exiles, Crispi and Pilo 
and the noble-minded Modenese, Niccola Fabrizi Ever 
since 1837 Fabrizi had made Malta his headquarters, and 
there devoted his life to guiding the movement against 
the Bourbons m the direction of Italian unity. Early in 
the fifties he laid in a secret store of ammunition and 
hundreds of bad, old muskets— some saved from the wreck 
of the late revolution in Sicily, others purchased for Ago 
by Mazzini in England.3 Though such an armoury was 

'M f ■''!'''"'' ^^■' ^'- ^°"'-' ^^'- Goodwin's letter of July . i8si 
^nAArch. dz State, Polizia, No. 1212, Castelcicala's letter of March 7 18,7 
on the Spirito Pubblico. '' ^'' 

' Mazzim Hi p. xxviii-xxx. Pietraganzili, i. 51, 52. Villari, 291 
Benttvegna and Sansove, passim, ' 

' Villari 392, 393. Shaen MS., Mazzini's letter, Novemberi 7 iS-ii 
Rass. Naz, January 1905, p. 7. '' ■^ • 



150 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

illegal in Malta, the British authorities, benevolently neutral 
to Bomba's enemies, made no effort to find it. The rumour 
of its existence gave Fabrizi importance among all Sicilian 
parties. The government at Palermo kept spies round 
him, who periodically reported his doings.^ There was a 
constant passage of conspirators from Sicily, Genoa, and 
England centering at Malta, and thence threatening 
the Bourbon rule. 

Owing to this ceaseless activity of the Mazzinians during 
the years when other parties were content to wait for better 
times, the idea of United Italy came to be closely associated 
in the Sicilian mind with the idea of revolt against Naples. 
When, towards the close of the fifties, the islanders began to 
hear tell of Cavour's policy, supported by the National Society 
under its secretary, La Farina ^ — himself a Sicilian exile — 
their minds were already prepared by Mazzini for the idea 
of amalgamation with Italy. Nor can it be said that either 
Mazzini or his agents actively opposed the abandonment 
by their Sicilian friends of the Republican part of the old 
programme. Fabrizi himself, following Garibaldi, gave in 
his adhesion to the main principle of the National Society, 
union imder Victor Emmanuel's crown.^ 

At length, in thesummerof 1859, the news of the victories 
over Austria in the Lombard plain brought about a united 
movement of all classes and parties in Sicily. The aris- 
tocracy of Palermo had not, as a whole, taken part in 
Mazzinian agitation and conspiracy, but Magenta and 
Solferino kindled their patriotic enthusiasm. On the night of 
June 26, 1859, a few young men improvised an illumination 
in the ' Nobles' Club,' opposite the fine statue of 
Charles V in the Piazza Bologni. At first the lights in the 
windows puzzled the ignorant populace, who, on being told 
that the nobles were celebrating ' Solferino,' stood whisper- 
ing ' Chi e siu sufrareddu ? ' — ' What is this Solferino ? ' The 

* Palermo MSS., Polisia, e.g. No. 1212, Note di Malta, Marzo, 1857, 
and No. 1237, 5, 209-211, 60. 

- See p. 65, above. 

* Fabrizi, 39. Villari, 382-391. 



THE SICILIANS INVITE GARIBALDI 151 

Neapolitan sentry at the foot of the statue looked at the 
bright hghts and laughed gaily, not knowing, poor fellow, 
that they were the beginning of many sorrows for 
him and his comrades. But the authorities soon ex- 
plamed matters. Maniscalco himself, hot with passion, 
stalked into the Club at the head of his police, put 
out the lights, shut up the house, and in the' next 
few days arrested a number of young men of the first 
famines in Palermo. These undignified and violent pro- 
ceedings aroused against him the whole aristocracy of the 
capital, and drew together all classes, from highest to lowest, 
m a tacit conspiracy against the government, which never 
abated during the momentous year that followed. The 
enthusiasm was infectious : young men of family, who had 
hitherto had no idea of using life except to partake of its 
less active pleasures, were ready to do anything in order to 
be marched off to the great Vicaria prison, which was ' con- 
sidered the place where one received the baptism of patriotic 
regeneration.' 1 

The movement at once turned men's thoughts to Gari- 
baldi. The conspirators invited him to come to Sicily and 
lead the revolution, and on September 29, 1859, he repUed 
from Bologna with great good sense : 

' Unite yourselves to our programme-//a/y and Victor 
EmmawMg^-indissolubly ! If you can do it with any chance 
Oi success, then rise. But if not, work at uniting and strengthen- 
ing yourselves. As to my coming to Sicily, I will come with 
pleasure, with joy. But ere that we require a more intimate 
communication between you and me ; we need stronger connec- 
tions and we must find means for this and make them effective 
because nowadays we must not risk what is secure.' 

His correspondents replied, again asking him to come over 
and lead them, or if he could not come himself, to send a man 
enjoying his confidence, because all parties and classes in the 
island, however much they quarrelled among themselves 
would rally round the name of Garibaldi. There the matter 

* Brancaccw, 11-22, 35, 



152 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

was left, but Garibaldi's advice and his conditional promise 
to come had done much to unite and encourage the Sicilians.i 

Meanwhile, in August, a gentleman in spectacles, going 
by the name of Manuel Pareda, from the Argentine, was 
travelling through the island as a tourist. He duly chmbed 
Aetna and looked down the crater in company with some 
English officers, who found the American singularly well- 
informed about Sicily. Pareda was in reality the disguised 
Sicilian, Francesco Crispi, afterwards the celebrated Prime 
Minister of Italy. At this time he was forty years of age, 
and already appeared to some who knew him in London to 
surpass his fellow exiles both in ability and in the spirit of 
personal ambition. But he had sacrificed to the Mazzinian 
cause all ordinary prospects in life, had been expelled even 
from Malta and from Piedmont, and now ventured this 
dangerous journey in disguise through his native island 
in order to bring the conspirators of Messina and Palermo, 
always suspicious of each other, into communication for 
a projected rising. The departure of the Swiss regiment 
from Palermo served as an encouragement,^ and it was 
agreed that the revolt should begin at the capital on October 
4, 1859. But when, after a return to England, Crispi came 
back to the island in a fresh disguise on October 11, he found 
the plan had missed fire. Mazzini and his friends believed 
that Piedmont had sent counter orders through La Farina 
to prevent a rising in Sicily before the Central Provinces 
had been safely annexed. But more certainly the Sicilians 
were themselves afraid to strike, because the police had got 
wind of the plot, and arrested several of the leaders. A local 
rising at Bagheria, ten miles outside the capital, led by the 
impetuous patriot Campo, was easily put down. The whole 
conspiracy had failed.^ 

' Villari, 3Ti-H7- Mazzini, xi. p. xxxvii. See head of this chapter 
for more of the letter. 

2 See p. 137, above. 

•^ Crispi (i), 233-255. Mr. Dolmage, one of the Englishmen whom 
Pareda met, independentlj' confirms Crispi's story of their meeting. 



MAZZINI'S LETTER 153 

On November 27, Maniscalco was stabbed at the door of 
the Cathedral of Palermo, whither he had gone with his 
wife and child to hear Mass. The disguised assassin escaped, 
and it is not known whether he had accomplices. The 
Director of Police soon recovered, but the revolutionists were 
encouraged by the temporary disablement of the man whom 
they most feared.i 

During February of the year i860, a Piedmontese visitor, 
named Benza, was the observed of all observers in the best 
society of Palermo. He bore secret messages from La 
Farina, the representative of Cavour, to the effect that the 
Sicilians should rise if they were sure of success, that owing 
to the attitude of Europe, Piedmont could give no help 
until after the revolution was accomplished, but that 
she would protect against reconquest a Sicily already set 
free.2 

Mazzini gave the same advice. On March 2, i860, he 
wrote his famous letter to the Sicilians : 

' Brothers, I confess I no longer recognise in the Sicilians 
of to-day the men who flung down the challenge in '48. ... 
First of all I repeat to you our declaration of two years ago : It 
is no longer a question of Republic or Monarchy ; it is a question 
of National Unity, of existence or non-existence. ... If Italy 
wishes to be a monarchy under the House of Savoy, let it be so. 
If, at the end, they choose to hail the King and Cavour as libera- 
tors or what not, let it be so. What we all require is that Italy 
should be made. . . . Wait ? For what ? Do you really think 
Napoleon or Cavour is coming to set you free ? . . . Dare, and 
you will be followed. But dare in the name of National 
Unity ; it is the condition sine qua non. . . . Garibaldi is bound 
to come to your help. I believe I can say that your initiative 
would be followed by the advance of the forces of Central Italy.' 

This letter, read in conclave by the revolutionary 

Delia Cerda MS. Conv. Mrs. Whitaker. Stillmo.n's Crispi, 51, 52. 
Magzini, xi. p. xxxvi-xxxviii. De Cesare, ii. 153, 154. Campo, 55-79. 
Villari, 379-381. Pietraganzili, i. 218-231. Paolucci, Pilo, 238, Riso, 
5-8. Rome MS. Mazz. Letters, V.E., No. 3344, to Crispi, 1859. 

' Ciaccio, 34. De Cesare, ii. 155, 156. Pietraganzili, i. 233-234. Colonna, 
93, 94. - Brancaccio, 82, 83. De Cesare, ii. 15S-160. 



154 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

Committee of Palermo, made no small impression on 
men already ashamed of their own inactivity.^ 

Urged thus by Cavourians and Mazzinians alike to act 
first for themselves and then look for support to Piedmont, 
the Sicilians at length began their revolt. But it is doubtful 
whether they would have screwed their courage to the 
sticking place but for one man, Francesco Riso, a master 
plimiber and mason. To Riso, in spite of his faults, Italy 
owes a great debt, for, at the cost of his hfe, he set on foot 
the local rebellion which drew Garibaldi into the field, and 
so led in eight months to the liberation of Sicily and Naples, 
Umbria and the Marches, and the creation of the Italian 
kingdom. 

The conspirators had only a few himdred firearms in the 
whole of Palermo with which to attack a garrison of nearly 
20,000 men. Under such conditions it is easier to meditate 
than to begin revolt. Baron Riso - gave ' constant balls ' to 
the aristocracy of Palenno ' on the first floor of his beautiful 
palace in the Toledo,' where ' dancing served as a cloak to 
meetings of patriots on the floor above, men in evening dress 
shpping upstairs between a gay valse or contredanse * to 
help in the making of cartridges and bombs for the coming 
revolution. 3 In another house seditious fly-leaves were struck 
oft" on a smaU printing-press made to pack into a metal box 
that fitted into a flower pot, and was covered with earth be- 
tween whiles.* The gentlemen who laboured at the press and 
manufactured the bombs were acting with courage, but a 
more reckless daring was needed to go out into the street 
and be shot do\Mi by the soldiers, and this was found only 
in Riso the plumber and the few score workmen whom he 
inspired. 

' Mazzini, xi. p. xlviii.-li. PaoJucci, PUo, 243, Riso, 18, 19. V. M. 
2, note. 

^ Not to be confused with Riso, the plumber. 

^ Whitaker, 273. Brancaccio 81, 82. The bombs were to be used not 
for murder but in open conflict, and were so used on April 4. 

* Reclamo Melt. Stamp. Clan. PiciragaziJi, i. 447, 448. The metal 
box, in size and shape rather like a hat box, is to be seen in the ^Museum at 
Palermo, Risorgimento section. 




H< 2 



RISO'S REVOLT AT THE GANCIA , 155 

In March the two sections of conspirators, plumber Riso 
and the workmen, and Baron Riso and the aristocrats, 
drew together. Baron Riso and his committee suppUed 
the workmen with the bombs and with means to acquire 
some firearms. 1 The plumber brought into the town a little 
wooden cannon and a meagre store of blunderbusses and 
muskets, hidden under cartloads of material for his own 
trade, and stored them in the Terrasanta, a building annexed 
to the old Gancia convent. He had hired the Terrasanta 
for his purposes, under cover of repairing his own house, 
which stood opposite the Gancia. That fine building, and 
the network of old, narrow and romantic streets surrounding 
it, remain to-day, like so much else in Palermo, exactly as 
they were when the Italian Revolution of i860 began in 
their midst. 2 

Under strong pressure from Riso, who was fiercely 
determined on action, the Committee consented to April 4 as 
the day for the rising. s On April 2, Riso told his friends 
of the Campo family that he did not expect that the nobles 
would actually join in the fighting or that the capital would 
rise, that he expected to perish, but that if he survived he 
would take a bloody vengeance on the Moderates and the 
aristocracy for having failed him at the crisis.* 

On the eve of the appointed day this desperate man and 
seventeen followers sat up aU night over their pile of arms 
in the Terrasanta waiting for dawn. As the morning of 
the 4th of April grew grey upon the windows they heard 
the trampling of patrols in the street, which told them that 
their plot was discovered. They had not been betrayed 
by anyone, least of all by any monk of the Gancia convent, 
though both patriotic and Bourbon legend has often said so. 
The plot, known to large numbers of people, was almost 
common talk in Palermo, and came to the ears of some 

' Ciaccio, 39. Paolucci, Riso, 18, 19. 
- Marco, 121, 122. Paolucci, Riso, 13, 14. 
^ Campo, Lettera, 6-9. Paolucci, Riso, 18-20. 

■* Campo, Riso, 12. Paolucci, Riso, 22 for his saj'Ing on April 4, 
' Tutti quelli che ci tradiscono, noi lifucileremo, quando saremo vincitori.' 



156 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

persons of governmental sympathies, who were justified in 
telUng Maniscalco.i 'We have gone too far now,' said 
Riso when he heard the patrols, ' we have no choice but to 
face the enemy with courage.' At five o'clock they issued 
from the Terrasanta, arms in hand, crying Viva V Italia, 
Viva Vittorio Emanuele, and exchanged shots with the 
compagni d'armi and soldiers in the alley between the 
Convent and Riso's house. Men fell on both sides. Riso's 
party, joined by a few other rebels from a neighbouring 
centre of the conspiracy, retreated into the Gancia itself, 
where the soldiers besieged them. In vain they rang the 
tocsin in the bell-tower to call the frightened town to rise ; 
in vain they hurled the bombs, which failed to explode. 
The Neapolitan troops blew open the doors with cannon 
and rushed into the Convent, killing some and seizing the 
rest as prisoners, including Riso himself, who had fallen 
mortally wounded near the door. Wrongly supposing that 
the monks, who were known to have popular sympathies, 
had participated in the revolt hatched in the annexe of the 
monastery, the soldiers bound them in couples, and gutted 
and sacked their church. 

It had been part of the plot that two other parties of 
rebels — fifty-two and thirteen men strong — should start 
from two neighbouring arsenals of the revolt, and find their 
way through the streets to join Riso, but they had been 
intercepted by the troops and very few had reached the 
Gancia. The authorities, fore-warned, were in such com- 
plete military occupation of all points of the town, that, as 
Riso had prophesied, neither the populace nor the aris- 
tocracy took part in the fight, although Baron Riso and 
other nobles went about the streets urging people to rise, 
and promising the aid of an armament from Piedmont s 
By. eight o'clock all was over.^ 

^ Paolucci, Riso, 20, 21. Marco, 128-130. 

^ Palermo MS., Polizia, April 8, letter of Castelcicala to Min. for Sic. 

■^ Paolucci, Riso, 20-25. ^^ Cesare, ii. 164-188. Marco, 130-147. 
Cronaca, 6, 7. L'assartu, 4 Ap. Palermo MS., Br. Cons., Goodwin's 
report on April 4 and letter of May 3. Winnington Ingram, 193, 194, for 
the hours, wrongly stated in some accounts. 




^1 



":: s 



RISING IN THE INTERIOR 157 

In the suburbs shots were fired at intervals until night- 
fall, and the Neapohtan troops seized the excuse to burn 
and pillage wherever they chose, and to murder unoffending 
women and children.i The squadre (as the bands of rebel 
peasantry from the mountains of the interior were called) 
had failed to carry out the difficult part assigned them by 
the committee of the conspirators, namely, to force their way 
into the heart of the town and join Riso. But some of 
them came down armed into the Conca d'oro, the marvellous 
plain wherein Palermo Ues, and fought there in the streets 
of the suburbs, and in the surrounding groves of lemon 
and orange. From April 4 until the entry of Garibaldi, 
parties, varying from two or three up to a dozen vagabonds,' 
hiding by day in the immense fruit forest, prowled about 
every night and let off their guns around the sleeping city.2 
But the real strength of the squadre lay, not in the 
seaward plain, but on and behind the steep wall of beauti- 
fully shaped mountains which holds the Conca d'oro in its 
arms. Behind that barrier stretches southwards a high 
undulating plateau of open cornland, broken here and there 
by precipitous hills and rock-ridges, on the summits and 
beneath the shadows of which nestle the upland towns— 
Corleone, Calatafimi, and others of less note. In such 
colossal villages of 5000 to 20,000 inhabitants the Sicilian 
peasants have from time immemorial congregated for safety 
at night, walking and riding out by day to distant labours 
in the vast open cornfield that once fed Imperial Rome. 
This strange country, the heart of Sicily, little known to 
foreigners then or now, had never been occupied in an 
effective manner by the Neapolitans or by the Spaniards 
before them. The Arabs of old had built castles in the 
interior, but the races who succeeded them in the possession 
of the island kept no garrisons except in the coast towns. 
Under the Bourbons, while Palermo and Messina, Trapani 

1 Palermo MS., Polizia, No. 1237, 4, 184, 60 and 249, 60, statements 
by Henri Bamberger and Tagliavia. 

2 Mundy, 105. Signer Tedaldi tells me he heard shots in the plain 
every night from April 4 to May 27. 



158 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

and Girgenti, were always full of troops, and were constantly 
being searched for arms, the population dwelling inland had 
seldom seen a brigade of soldiers even in the largest towns, 
and still possessed their sporting guns and blunderbusses. ^ 
So now, at the signal of the Gancia revolt, the more 
adventurous or patriotic — and in some cases the more 
criminal — of the young peasants in the north-west of the 
island followed their landlords into the field, inspired by 
a last after-glow of the old feudal attachment. Until the 
coming of Garibaldi these bands, wandering about in the 
mountains, sometimes coming into the villages to sleep, 
skirmished with the flying columns sent out after them from 
Palermo. 

During the fortnight following April 4 continual en- 
counters with squadre of a few hundred men each took 
place on the mountains overlooking Palermo, at Monreale, 
Gibilrossa, and elsewhere. The royal troops were usually 
victorious, and the result of the final conflict at Carini on 
April 18 bade fair to disperse the last of the bands. ^ 

Plana dei Greci, an Alpine village in a small fertile 
plain enclosed by a circle of magnificent mountains, was the 
hearth of freedom in Western Sicily. Though only ten miles 
from Palermo as the crow flies, the intervening mountain 
barriers rendered it remote and relatively free from inter- 
ference. It had been peopled at the end of the fifteenth 
century by Greek-Albanians flying from trouble in their 
own country, many of whose descendants preserved in this 
fastness of the hills not only their Greek religion but the 
sturdy and independent character acquired by their ancestors 
in Balkan warfare. Hither, on April 19, the Albanian leader 
Piediscalzi returned with a small and dispirited remnant 



1 See Maps III. and IV., below. Viollet le Dm, 63. Fazio, 41. I 
think that the only Neapolitan garrison up country In i860 was that 
of Caltanisetta. Certainly there were no troops permanently stationed 
in Plana dei Greci, Alcamo, Calatafimi, or Corleone. 

* Cronaca, 8-43. Butta, i. 12-15. jP^'^w* ^^i Greci, 11-22. Fazio, 
23-45. De Cesare, ii. 155, 167. 




RCSOLINO PILO. 

With tricolour scarf and belt bearing arms of Sicily. 

(From a contemporary print,) 



PILO'S JOURNEY 159 

from the Carini fight, intending to disband his followers 
and to emigrate. This would have meant the end of the 
revolt, for when the Albanians laid down their arms no 
other community was likely to continue the struggle for 
long.i But on the evening of the next day hope suddenly 
revived. Rosolino Pilo, a Sicilian of noble family, who 
had taken a leading part in 1848, and had since been one 
of Mazzini's closest friends in his English exile, unexpectedly 
appeared in Plana dei Greci, and announced himself as the 
herald of the coming of Garibaldi. 

Pilo and his companion Corrao had left Genoa in a small 
sailing boat on March 25, and after many dangers and 
delays landed near Messina on April 10. Hearing that the 
insurrection was in progress at the other end of the island, 
they travelled its whole length to Plana dei Greci, rousing 
the villages through which they passed to demonstrations 
of patriotic enthusiasm, and everywhere promising the 
speedy advent of Garibaldi. Towards the close of their 
romantic journey, in the wild and solitary oak-forest of 
Ficuzza, they had fallen in with the compagni d'armi, who 
gave chase and captured their guide. 

The news of Garibaldi which they brought safe through 
so many perils to Plana dei Greci prevented the total extinc- 
tion of the movement initiated on April 4. Pilo was playing 
a game of bluff : he had gone to Sicily to keep the insurrec- 
tion alive in the hope that by doing so he would induce 
Garibaldi to follow and take over the lead, but he found 
that the only means of keeping it alive was to announce 
Garibaldi's coming as a thing already certain. The Albanians 
at once sent word round to the patriots of the Sicihan 
townships to take the field again, and, although their own 
village was speedily occupied by royal troops, they put 
themselves under Pilo's leadership and marched off once 
more to the other side of Monreale. There, establishing his 
rough camp on the Inserra mountains, Pilo, at the head of 

» Termini, which sent many men to join the squadre, was occupied by 
Neapolitan troops on April 22. Teymini, 5, 6. 



t6o garibaldi and THE THOUSAND 

the partially revived insurrection, watched Palermo in the 
plain below until the actual coming of Garibaldi relieved 
him of a heavy responsibility. ^ 

Pilo's arrival as earnest of the approach of the detts ex 
machine entirely changed the political atmosphere. In 
spite of the failure of the revolt, it was the Sicilians who 
exulted, the soldiers who were gloomy and anxious. During 
the last fortnight of April and the first few days of May, the 
authorities at Naples and Palermo were perpetually alarmed 
by false reports sent them by the Cardinals in Rome and by 
their own agents in Genoa and Turin, to the effect that 
Garibaldi had already sailed. ^ 

The confidence of the Sicilians of all classes that he 
would come and that he would conquer was irrational and 
unbounded ; ' this belief,' wrote the Governor Castelcicala, 
on May 3, ' is universal, and has spread to the remotest 
villages of the island.' ^ In Palermo the secret press was 
often taken out of the flower-pot to print off little 
handbills, beginning Fratelli vinceremo (' Brothers, we 
shall conquer '), and signed // Comitato {' The Committee '). 
The excitement had been tense ever since April 7, when 
Baron Riso and five other nobles of the first families in 
Sicily had been marched through the crowded streets to 
the Castellamare fortress, bound together as common felons. 
' The Committee ' organised impressive demonstrations of 
the unanimity of the capital and its obedience to orders. 
One day a vast crowd of many thousands appeared sud- 
denly in the mile-long Toledo street which divides the 
town in half, and gave one universal shout of Viva Vittorio 
Emanuele before the astonished police knew what to do. 
Every day there were smaller demonstrations and numerous 

^ Plana dei Greet, 22, 23. Paohtcci, Pilo, 246-266. Romano-Catania, 
3-5. Costantini, chaps, vii. andx. ForPilo's voyage see MoWo, or Ma^it'wt', 
xi. pp. liv.,lxix., clxiv.-clxx. Risorg. anno i., iv. 711-714. The date of 
departure was morning of March 25, see Mazzini, xi. pp. clx. and clxvii.. 
not 26th as stated in Paolucci, Pilo, 248. 

2 Palermo MS., Polizia, No. 1238, passim. 

3 Palermo MS., Polizia, No. 1238, passim. Letter ol May 3. And 
see Brancaccio, 164, 167, 178. 



DEATH OF FRANCESCO RISO i6i 

arrests. The shutters were often put up and commerce was 
at a standstill. The Vicaria gaol-fortress in the northern 
suburb was crowded by hundreds of pohtical prisoners, 
who cast in the teeth of the gaolers that ' Piddu ' (Giuseppe 
Garibaldi) was coming. i 

Amid the gathering of these thunder-clouds, so soon to 
break over Palermo in the deluge of the final catastrophe, 
a strange melodrama was being enacted round the death- 
bed of Francesco Riso. On April 14, thirteen of the Gancia 
rebels had been executed on a piece of waste ground 
near the port, now known as the ' Piazza delle 13 viiiime.' 
Among these victims was Riso's aged father. A few days 
later Maniscalco came to the bedside of the son, who lay 
dying from the wound received at the Gancia, and offered 
to spare the life of his father if he would reveal his accom- 
plices. Riso, full of pity for the old man, whom he thought 
to be still alive, and perhaps not unwilling to expose the 
nobles whom he held to have deserted him, made long 
statements on April 17 and 22, in which he named Baron 
Riso and others who were already under arrest, and Mortil- 
laro and Pisani who were still at large. When it was too 
late to repent of his weakness, he learned from the Chaplain 
of the hospital that his father had been shot several days 
before. He procured, by the help of the sympathetic 
Chaplain and of a medical student in the hospital, a pistol 
with which to avenge himself on Maniscalco, and hid it 
under his bedclothes. But he was too weak to use it, and 
on April 27 he died, in no Christian frame of mind. 2 

None of the conspirators whom he had named came to 
grief, but the revolt which he had set on foot continued and 
spread until it became the Italian revolution. While he 
was breathing his last, his countrymen whispered to each 
other as they passed in the streets, ' He is coming ! ' 
* Garibaldi ? ' ' Garibaldi.' 

1 Palermo MS., Polizia, 'Nos. 1237, 1238, Castelclcala's letters. Paolucci, 
Riso, 38. La Lumia, 66, 73, Cronaca, 51, 60. Brancaccio, 164. Pietra- 
ganzili, 1. 256-258. Menghini, 17, 18, 414. Tiirr's Div., doc. 5, pp. 339-34J. 

2 See Appendix C. The death-bed of Francesco Riso. 

M 



CHAPTER IX 

THE ORIGINS OF THE EXPEDITION. NICE OR SICILY ? 

' Such ties are not 
For those who are cali'd to the high destinies 
Which purify corrupted commonwealths ; 
We must forget all feelings save the one, 
We must resign all passions save our purpose, 
We must behold no obj ect save our country, 
And only look on death as beautiful, 
So that the sacrifice ascend to heaven, 
And draw down freedom on her evermore.' 

Byron. — Marino Falievo, Act II, sc. 2. 

The expedition of Garibaldi, that led in six months to 
the liberation of the whole of Italy, except Venetia and the 
district round Rome, was not the work of one party, but of 
all the elements of Italian patriotism. Mazzini and his 
friends instigated the expedition ; Garibaldi and his followers 
accomplished it ; the King and Cavour allowed it to start, 
and when it had begun to succeed, gave it the support and 
the guidance without which it must inevitably have failed 
midway. It is true that the fiercer adherents of each party 
vilified their allies, denying to them their just share of credit. 
But these partisan and personal jealousies have at least 
helped forward the investigations of the historian, by 
inducing controversialists, like Bertani and La Farina, to 
give to the world documents that can be trusted better than 
the opinions of their editors, while moderate men like Sirtori, 
Medici, and Bixio, regretting these unseemly squabbles, 
have come forward with reliable statements of what they 
themselves saw and heard. 1 The whole truth is not yet 

' A good example of this will be found in the report of the important 

162 



CRISPrS PROPOSAL 163 

clear, especially as regards the motives that prompted 
Cavour's action up to the time of the sailing of the 
Thousand, but it is now possible to give a fairly accurate 
though not a complete narrative of the origins of the 
expedition, and of the preparations made for its armament 
and departure. 

The idea that Garibaldi should go to liberate Sicily was 
as old as March 1854, when Mazzini had suggested it to him 
in London at the moment of his return from America on 
board his coal-ship. 1 In September 1859, the Sicihans 
had themselves invited him. 2 On both occasions he had 
rephed that he would gladly go, but only if the Sicihans 
were already in open rebellion, to which he declined to incite 
them on his own responsibility. Since he always adhered 
strictly to this formula, it became the task of the Mazzinian 
party to stir up revolt in the island in order to hold him 
to the terms of his promise. 

In December 1859, Mazzini's agent, Crispi, returning 
from his unsuccessful attempt to promote a rising in his 
native Sicily,-'^ repaired to Tuscany and Emiha, the newly- 
liberated States of Central Italy, which were not yet annexed 
to Piedmont, but still under the provisional government of 
the Dictators Ricasoli and Farini. Here he sought and 
found Fabrizi, revolutionary agent in Malta for the affairs 
of Sicily and Naples,* then on a visit to his native Modena 
after an exile of some thirty years. The two friends agreed 
that since the invasion of the Papal States had been vetoed 
from Turin, the time had come for an attack on the Bourbon 
kingdom. Emilia and Tuscany were filled with Garibaldi's 
volunteers, unemployed and discontented since their chief 
had, a few weeks before, been recalled from the ' Rubicon.' ^ 
Let these men, said Crispi, be drawn off from a district 

retrospective debate in the Chamber on June 19, 1863, in which Bertani, 

La Farina, Bixio, and Sirtori all took part. 

* See p. 19, above. 2 ggg p j^j^ abovg, 

3 See p. 152, above. * See p. 149, above, 

' See pp. 119-121, above. 

M 2 



i64 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

where they are only a source of embarrassment to the author- 
ities, and let them sail under Garibaldi to the liberation of 
Sicily. Thence the revolution would spread to Naples and 
from Naples to the Papal States taken in the rear. Crispi, 
introduced by Fabrizi, laid the plan before Farini, the 
Dictator of Emilia, who was residing in Modena. Farini 
entered eagerly into the plot, and sent Crispi on to Turin 
to obtain the consent of the Piedmontese Government. 

Rattazzi was still Victor Emmanuel's Prime Minister, 
but was already tottering to his fall. Between December 15 
and January 3 he had several interviews with Crispi, and 
listened with sympathy to his proposal. The project was 
also laid before the Sicilian La Farina, Secretary of the 
National Society and Cavour's confidant,^ whom Crispi 
found more disposed than the Prime Minister to raise objec- 
tions. Early in the new year the Rattazzi government fell, 
and Cavour came back to power (January 20, i860). One of 
his first acts was to drive Crispi out of Turin under the old 
order of expulsion still hanging over his head. 2 Cavour as 
yet only knew of Crispi as one of Mazzini's most violent 
followers, and he was moreover determined to enter upon 
no adventures in the South until he had secured the actual 
annexation of Tuscany and Emilia by a bargain which he 
was now on the point of negotiating with Napoleon.^ 

Meanwhile, during the last days of 1859, Garibaldi came 
to Turin, bent on obtaining some employment for himself 
and his volunteers. He was not yet thinking of Sicily, though 
Crispi and Rattazzi were at that moment discussing the 
possibility of sending him there. He asked for a free hand 
to organise the National Guard in Lombardy as a force 
under his own command. Through the influence, probably, 
of Cavour, this was refused, although the king as usual 
treated Garibaldi with the greatest kindness, and sent him 

1 See pp. 66, 67, above. 

- Cns/?z(i), 300-303. Mazzini, xi. pp. xxxix-xli. La Farina, ii. 269. 
Mario, Vita, i. 195 (Crispi' s letter). 
^ Chiala. iii. 209. 



GARIBALDI'S POLITICAL FAILURE 165 

away from the interview with unshaken confidence in the 
Re galantuomo. His anger was entirely directed against 
Cavour. While he was in Turin, the ministerial crisis came 
to a head, and the baser friends of the falling Rattazzi 
government tried to save the situation by using Garibaldi's 
name against their great rival. ' Our poor Garibaldi,' 
wrote his wise and faithful follower Medici, who had thrown 
up his own commission in order to be at his service, 

' Our poor Garibaldi . . . allows himself to be persuaded by 
discredited men to go to Turin ; he comes with most noble 
intentions ; but Garibaldi in alliance with Brofferio cannot 
succeed ... he ruins himself in times of inaction ; he talks 
too much, writes too much, and listens too much to those who 
know nothing,' 1 

Under these malign influences he resigned, on December 29, 
the Presidency of the National Society, ^ which was 
closely associated with Cavour through its Secretary, La 
Farina. On December 31, he proceeded to form a rival 
society of a more advanced tendency, to be called the 
' Nazione Armata.' But the project failed to enlist support 
and was dissolved in ridicule. On January 4, i860, by a 
happier inspiration, he issued an appeal calling on the 
Italians to subscribe instead to his ' Milhon Rifles Fund ' 
for the purchase of arms. Although the name betokened 
the ideal rather than the achievement, the Fund was 
destined to be of great importance in the history of the 
Sicilian expedition. The government consented to allow 
the purchase of arms by the Directors on condition that 
it was kept informed of the whereabouts of the armouries. 
To this Garibaldi readily agreed. ^ 

Cavour, having fought his way back to office in spite of 
the intrigues of his enemies, felt no resentment against the 
simple man whom they had made their tool, no pang of 
jealousy against the rival of his popular fame, and none of 

^ To Panizzi, January 8, i860, Panizzi, 407, 408. 

2 In which post he had succeeded Pallavicino in the middle of October; 
see La Farina, ii. 222. For the National Society, p, 65, above. 
* Ciampoli, 123-125. 



i66 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

that contempt which clever people of the second order so 
often feel towards men of great but not strictly intellectual 
powers. 'Although,' he wrote, on February lo, 'Garibaldi 
allowed himself to be drawn into union with my per- 
sonal enemies, Brofferio and Co., I recognise in him none 
the less one of the greatest forces of which Italy can avail 
herself.' i 

Indeed the main problem for Italy in the coming year was 
to avoid the wrong and to find the right outlet for the pent 
anger and energy of the Garibaldini, now growing so danger- 
ous at home. The suggestion that they should be sent 
to liberate Sicily, made in December by Crispi and Fabrizi, 
was in January taken up by Garibaldi's own friends, Medici 
and Bertani, who on the 19th wrote to tell their secret to 
the confidant of all Italian patriots who sat in the British 
Museum Library. 2 ' English policy,' wrote Bertani, ' will 
gain by the scheme : Medici and I will set to work to per- 
suade Garibaldi.' Bertani, who later in the year was 
extreme in opposition to Cavour, in January still understood 
the realities of the situation, which he himself was doing 
much to develop in the right direction. 

' To bring together Cavour and Garibaldi,' so he wrote to 
Panizzi, ' is now a difficulty but still more a necessity for our 
cause. Garibaldi has in his hand the people of Italy and the 
King ; Cavour could supply the intelligence and the guidance 
that both require through dangerous paths. Cavour with the 
King and Garibaldi can emancipate himself in great part from 
subjection to Napoleon. . . . You do not know perhaps how 
much Napoleon may fear and ought to fear Garibaldi, the 
only man able to disarrange his plans and force his hands.' 

The history of the year was to be a remarkable fulfilment 
of all these words. ^ 

On January 24 Garibaldi replied as follows to Bertani's 
petition that he should go to Sicily : — 

1 Chiala, in, 208. For events related in the above paragraphs, see 
Guerzoni, i. 506, 507. La Farina, ii. 263-282. Chiala, iii. pp. cccii-cccvi. 

2 Bertani's letter to Panizzi of January 19. Panizzi, 412. 

3 Chiala, iv. pp. xci, xcii, Letter of January 19. 



GARIBALDI'S SECOND MARRIAGE 167 

' You can assure your friends of South Italy that I am always 
at their disposition when they are willing really to act.' 

and indicated that the weapons now being purchased by 
his Million Rifles Fund might serve him to arm an expedition 
against the Bourbons.i 

On the very day when he wrote this letter, which we may 
regard as his first contribution to the correspondence of the 
Sicilian expedition, he committed the most foolish act of 
his private life in marrying the daughter of Count Raimondi. 
At a critical moment in the Alpine campaign of the previous 
summer, news of the Austrians had been brought to him 
across the mountains by a young lady, whose handsome 
presence and daring deed appealed to his facile sense of the 
romantic. In the middle of December he became her 
father's guest at Fino, near Como, and after his political 
visit to Turin he returned there again in the middle of 
January i860. That first month of his great year brought 
him little credit either in public or private affairs. For- 
getting his fiifty-two winters and her youth, and much else 
that it behoved him to remember, he proposed marriage 
and was accepted by her and her family. On January 24, 
i860, the ceremony took place at Fino, but before nightfall 
a letter was put into his hand which proved that she was 
in the habit of favouring a younger man. Full of ' bad 
thoughts,' but ' terribly cool as to his demeanour,' he sought 
the house through till he came to his wife's room, and asked 
her if she had written the letter. She confessed it. * Then 
see,' he said, ' that you do not bear my name ; I leave you 
for ever.' 2 

In February he returned to dig at Caprera,^ bitterly 
mortified, and, as we may guess, craving to find oblivion of 
the present in deeds and adventures more worthy of things 
long past. As he moodily broke the soil in the cold February 
days he revolved letters and messages that came to the 

* Cihmpoli, 127. Chiala, iv. p. xcii. 

2 Guerzoni, i. 466, 508, 509. Melena, 83, 148, Mario Sup p. 450. 

* See Appendix D, below, sec. I. 



i68 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

island, all urging him to go and liberate the South. Mazzini 
had written more than once calling on him to aid a simul- 
taneous attack on Sicily and the Papal States, but apparently 
without obtaining an answer. i In the middle of February 
Bertani sent to Caprera a certain Mignona, a Neapolitan 
exile of Mazzinian opinions, to arrange for an attack on the 
Bourbon power. Garibaldi agreed to help, on the condition 
that the movement was strictly monarchical, and wrote 
on February 20 to the effect that the money and arms 
collected by the Million Rifles Fund should be applied to 
this purpose. 2 

It was in fact almost superfluous for Mazzini on 
February 19 and 28 to write from London beseeching 
Bertani, Medici, and Bixio to stir up Garibaldi. ^ They had 
been successfully at work upon him ever since January. 
But at the end of February their efforts were seconded by 
the arrival from London of Mazzini's Sicilian friend, Rosolino 
Pilo, a still unreconciled Republican. On February 24 
Pilo wrote to Garibaldi from Genoa, offering himself to 
go to the South and raise a rebellion, provided that 
Garibaldi would promise to come out then and take over 
the command. On March 15 Garibaldi wrote from Caprera 
in reply : 

' Arrange with Bertani and the Directors [of the Million Rifles 
Fund] at Milan to obtain the arms and requirements. In case 
of action remember that the programme is Italy and Victor 
Emmanuel. 

' I will not flinch from any undertaking, however dangerous 
it may be, where it is a question of fighting the enemies of our 
country. But at the present time I do not think a revolutionary 
movement opportune in any part of Italy, unless it has great 
probability of success.' * 

This famous letter is no more than a repetition of the con- 
ditional promise which he had made to Bertani, first on 
January 24 and again in February at the time of Mignona's 

1 Bertani, ii. 8, 9. - See Appendix D, below, sec. II. 

* Mazzini, xi. pp. xlv-xlviii. ^ Mario, 255, 



CESSION OF NICE AND SAVOY 169 

visit. 1 But his letter of March 15 was addressed to a man 
who took him at his word and started off then and there for 
Sicily to create the revolt for which he stipulated as the 
preliminary to his own action. On March 25 Pilo, with 
his companion Corrao, set sail in a fishing-boat from 
Genoa. 2 

But before their little storm-tossed bark could land the 
two travellers on the Sicilian shore, the revolt which they 
intended to stir up had broken out at Palermo on April 4 
under the leadership of Riso the plumber.^ By the end of 
the first week of April the news that the Sicilians had risen 
reached Turin, at the moment when the representatives of 
free Italy, from the ' Rubicon ' to the Alps, were gathering 
there to watch the unequal Parliamentary duel between 
Garibaldi and Cavour on the question of Savoy and Nice. 

For now, after a year of waiting, Tuscany and Emilia 
had been safely annexed, and the price of Napoleon's con- 
sent to the annexation had been agreed to by treaty. On 
March 24 Cavour signed away the provinces of Savoy and 
Nice in the presence of the French Plenipotentiary. * Now,' 
he said, rubbing his hands together in a way that he had 
when pleased, ' now we are accomplices.' * Of two accom- 
plices, one is certain to get the better of the other, and Cavour 
rubbed his hands because he felt sure to get by the bargain 
more than Napoleon intended to give. He had no thought 
of being contented with the Central Provinces alone. On 
March 30, six days after he had signed the treaty, we find 
him writing to sound Villamarina at Naples as to the 
practicability of a Neapohtan revolution. He would, he 
wrote, have wished to postpone the attack on the South, 
but that events were driving him forward. And indeed 
the offensive alliance just formed by the King of Naples 
with the Pope and Austria made it more dangerous for him 
to sit still than to advance. ^ 



1 Cihmpoli, 127. See Appendix D, below, sec. III. 

2 See p. 159, above. ^ See pp. 155, 156, above. 

* Chiala, iv. p. Ixviii. * See pp. 138, 141, above. 



170 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

When, therefore, in the first week of April he knew that 
the Sicihans were in revolt, his first thought was to send 
them aid. He could hardly at that moment send them 
Garibaldi, who had just arrived in Turin for the purpose of 
denouncing him as the traitor who sold Nice. But on 
April 6 the War Minister, General Fanti, wrote in Cavour's 
name to General Ribotti, then in command of the royal 
troops at Rimini, to ask ' whether if the revolution breaks 
out in Sicily you would go there, first resigning your com- 
mission in the Army.' Ribotti, who had in 1848 commanded 
a brigade of Sicilian revolutionists, was a suitable person to 
lead the insurgents, but, as we can now see, no leader of 
irregular troops except Garibaldi would in fact have had 
the least chance of success under the actual conditions in 
Sicily. Indeed, when Ribotti arrived at Turin, eager to 
be sent on the expedition, he found Cavour and Fanti 
already hanging back ; they expressed to him their doubts 
as to the seriousness of the rising in the island, and by that 
time, it must also be remembered, they knew for certain 
that Garibaldi was preparing to go. Ribotti, disgusted 
by the fickleness of statesmen, returned to his command 
at Rimini. 1 

Garibaldi meanwhile, leaving Caprera on April i and 
visiting Nice on the way,^ arrived at Turin as one of the 
duly elected representatives of his native city to protest 
against the proposal to hand it over to France. In the 
blackness of his anger against the man who had ' made him 
a foreigner,' the great Nizzard might have carried his pro- 
test dangerously far, had not the news of the Sicilian rising 
of April 4 reached him in happy time, and thenceforth 
employed more than half his thoughts and energies. On 
April 7 Crispi and Bixio, who received the news at Genoa 
by a wire from Fabrizi at Malta, started for Turin to inform 
Garibaldi that Sicily was in arms. An hour before mid- 
night they found him, and claimed that since the conditions 

1 Fanti, 320,321. Guardione, ii, 419,420 {Calvino), Chiala,iv.Tp.cx. 
* King's Mazzini, 184, note. Guerzoni, ii. 8, 



GARIBALDI AND THE KING'S ARMY 171 

of his often repeated promise were now fulfilled, he was 
bound to go to the help of the islanders. He consented at 
once, provided that his friend Hudson, the British Minister 
at Turin, would confirm the news.i Next day (April 8), 
having, probably, been satisfied by Hudson, he wrote to the 
Directors of the Million Rifles Fund at Milan to send the 
arms and money to Genoa, where the expedition was to be 
organised. On the 9th he applied to his friend Fauche, the 
paid agent of the Rubattino Steamship Company at Genoa, 
to procure one of the Company's steamers — * either the 
Piemonte or the San Giorgio,' so he writes — ' to take me to 
Sicily with some companions.' 2 

These ' companions ' were to be chosen principally 
from the volunteers of 1859. Many of them, including 
Medici and Bixio, had retired into civil life with their chief 
alter his recall from the ' Rubicon ' in November, and were 
therefore in a position to obey his summons at a moment's 
notice. 3 But others were now in the royal forces, being 
chiefly congregated in the 46th regiment of the line under 
Colonel Gaetano Sacchi, a veteran who had followed 
Garibaldi in every campaign since 1842. Garibaldi's first 
idea when he heard the news of the Sicilian rising was to 
obtain leave to take with him Sacchi' s regiment, and 
possibly the 45th as well. He saw Victor Emmanuel, who 
was sympathetic, but would say neither ' yes ' nor ' no,' 
probably because he had not yet asked Cavour. Garibaldi 
thereupon called Sacchi to Turin, divulged the plan to him, 
and sent him off to sound the old Garibaldini among the 
officers of the 46th, who went nearly mad with joy at such 
a prospect. But a few days later the King, having con- 
sulted Cavour, not only refused to sanction this particular 
plan, but told Garibaldi that he must use every effort to 
preserve the discipline of the Army, and must not carry off 
either its regiments or its individual members, lest while 
he was conquering Sicily the country should be left 

* Crispi, Diario, i8, Guerzoni, ii. 25. Fabrizi, 49,, 

^ CiampoU, 132, 133. 

' Panizzi, 403, Medici's letter of December 29, 1859. 



172 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

defenceless to the attack of Austria, or to the now 
scarcely less dreaded protection of France. Garibaldi 
sent again to fetch Sacchi to Turin, and in the presence 
of Trecchi, the King's confidential aide-de-camp, told him 
the hard decision. i 

In this vital matter Garibaldi loyally obeyed the general 
spirit of the King's orders, in spite of great temptation to 
wink at desertions. Out of the Thousand who first sailed 
for Sicily, only five were royal officers ; but of these at least 
one, Bandi, was deliberately taken by Garibaldi because he 
required his technical experience on the staff, and he was 
not wrong in supposing that the King actually wished him 
to go. 2 But great numbers of privates and officers were 
refused at every stage of the expedition, both by Garibaldi 
himself and by Bertani and the agents whom he left behind 
him to organise the reinforcements. In spite of the ardent 
desire prevalent in all ranks of the service to go to Sicily 
at every personal sacrifice of promotion or career, the 
combined efforts of the authorities and of Garibaldi's friends 
preserved very tolerable discipline in the Army, and so 
saved the country from disaster.^ 

During the last five days of his residence in the capital 
(April 8-12), Garibaldi was torn between his duty to Sicily 
and his duty, as he conceived it, to Nice. A committee of his 
fellow-townsmen had come to Turin and were urging him to 
save them from France, while Crispi and Bertani worked 
hard on the other side, telling him * he ought now to think 
of nothing but Sicily.' * The powerful advice of Sir James 

1 Guerzoni, ii. 26, 27 and note, being Sacchi's own evidence. Cappel- 
letti's V. E. ii. 183, 184. Turr's Div. 11, All thestages of the iacident must 
have occurred between April 8 and April 12, for Sacchi says he was on both 
occasions fetched to Turin, and Garibaldi was not in Turin after April 12, 
and he only learnt of the rising in Sicily on April 7, midnight, 

2 Bandi, 60, 61. 

^ A quantity of evidence on this point, for May i860, will be found 
collected in Milan MSS,, A^ B,, Piico xii^ No. 13, Also Ciampoli, 137, and 
Bandi, 64, 65, 

"* Crispi, Diario, 19. 



HUDSON'S LETTER 173 

Hudson was thrown into the Sicilian scale. The British 
Minister at Turin understood that Savoy and Nice were the 
necessary price of Italian unity, and he made it his business 
to prevent Lord John Russell and Garibaldi from ruining 
Italy by useless resistance to Napoleon. In England, then 
nervous of every increase of French power, the feeling 
against the cession of Nice and Savoy was very strong, and 
Palmerston talked of war with France. Lord John, as 
Foreign Minister, loudly voiced the feehng of the country. 
But Hudson, who saw in England's attitude a danger to 
Italy, wrote, on April 6, to his friend Lady Russell a letter 
which was certainly intended to be seen by her husband, 
and is more artfully calculated to convince Lord John than 
anything which its author could well have put into the 
diplomatic language of a dispatch. The abuse of Napoleon 
III may, in part, be set down to the desire of the writer to 
win the confidence of his readers, and the rest of the letter 
may still be read as one of the best statements of the 
difficult case of Nice and Savoy.i 

Turin, 6 April, i860. 

' My dear Lady John, 

. . . You mention in your letter the name of that scandal to 
royalty — Louis Napoleon. What can I say of him ? Hypocrite 
and footpad combined. He came to carry out an "Idea," and 
he prigs the silver spoons. " Take care of your pockets " 
ought to be the cry whenever he appears, either personally or 
by deputy. 

' But do not I beg of you consider and confound either the 
King of Sardinia or Cavour as his accomplice. Think for a 
moment on the condition of Sardinia, who represents the nascent 
hope of Italy — think of the evil that man [Napoleon] meant, 
how he tried to trip up the heels of Tuscany — establish a precarious 
Vicarial existence for the Romagna, and plots now at Naples ; 
not to have surrendered when he cried " stand and deliver," 
would have been to have risked all that was gained — would 
have given breathing time to Rome — reinforced and comforted 

1 Printed from the Russell MSS., lent me by Lady Agatha Russeil, 
For Britain's attitude on the question see Wal pole's Twenty- five Years 
1. 274-278, and Br. Pari. Papers, 9, ii. Palmerston, ii. 190-192. 



174 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

Rome's partizans in the Romagna — have induced doubt, fear, 
and disunion throughout Italy. Judging by the experience of 
the last eight years I must say I saw no means of avoiding the 
Rocks ahead save by a sop to Cerberus. 

' But do not lose confidence in the National party. Cavour 
or no Cavour, Victor Emmanuel or another, that party is deter- 
mined to give Italy an Italian representation. I regret that the 
Nizzards (who have a keen eye to the value of Building Lots) 
are wrenched from us by a French filou — but I cannot forget 
that the Savoyards have constantly upheld the Pope, and have 
been firm and consistent in their detestation of Liberal Govern- 
ment in Sardinia. I am not speaking of the neutral parts please 
remember. 

' Your most devoted servant, 

' James Hudson.' 

The writer of this letter was equally energetic in his 
efforts to divert Garibaldi from Nice. We know from Crispi's 
diary i that Garibaldi consulted the British Minister in these 
critical days at Turin, and Hudson himself used in after 
years to describe how he had urged his friend to leave the 
inevitable alone and to go where he was really wanted ; 
hoping to arouse his patriotic emulation, Hudson told him 
that another expedition to help the Sicilians was being fitted 
out by an Englishman. 2 

Whether this adventurous Briton was a reality or a bright 
creation of diplomatic fancy, there was an Englishman of 
flesh and blood at this time in the Piedmontese capital 
deeply involved in another conspiracy. Laurence Oliphant, 
the charming, witty and eccentric author of ' Piccadilly,' 
who, when he was not shining in London society, was 
seeking adventures wherever they were to be found, from 
Nicaragua to Poland and Japan, managed on this occasion 
to get into touch with the Nizzard Committee at Turin. 
He helped them to persuade Garibaldi, who attended their 
secret meetings, to make an interpellation in the Chamber ; 

^ Crispi, Diario, 18. 

2 I have this from Sir Cecil Spring Rice, who had it from Hudson's own 
lips. 



GARIBALDI INTERPELLATES CAVOUR 175 

but if that failed (as Garibaldi was angrily sure that it would 
fail, having no faith in Parliamentary proceedings in times 
of crisis), it was agreed that he should go to Nice and make 
there some demonstration of a more practical kind. On 
April 12 the famous interpellation took place before a large 
and excited audience. It was Garibaldi's first appearance 
in Parliament, He spoke calmly, repeating the constitu- 
tional arguments with which others had supplied him, 
but his best point was a well-founded complaint of pressure 
then being exercised by government on the people of Nice 
to induce them to vote in their plebiscite for annexation to 
France. He asked that the polling day at Nice should at 
least be postponed from April 15 till April 22, which was the 
date fixed for the vote in Savoy. Cavour answered courte- 
ously and effectively, assuring the House that to have 
refused to sign the Treaty of March 24 would have 
endangered the State newly formed by the annexation of 
the Centre, and would absolutely have destroyed all hope of 
further advance. ' Turn your eyes,' he said, ' beyond the 
Mincio and beyond the confines of Tuscany.' This some- 
what broad hint was well understood, and the Chamber 
escaped from the subject by voting a non-committal 
' order of the day.' 1 

Garibaldi left the Chamber in a rage. ' I told you so,' 
he said to Oliphant : ' that is what your fine interpellations 
and Parliamentary methods always come to.' That night 
the Nizzard Committee met once more and, as Oliphant, 
who was there present, reports, a plan was decided on more 
suited to Garibaldi's taste. All knew that the plebiscite, 
manipulated by Government, would go heavily for annexa- 
tion if taken on April 15. It was therefore decided that 
Garibaldi should ' leave Genoa in a steamer to be chartered 
for the purpose, with two hundred men,' and, sailing to Nice, 
should enter the town just after the vote had been taken, 
smash the ballot-boxes, and scatter the papers, so rendering 



1 Cam. Dep., April 12, i860. Chiala, iv. pp. Ixxviii - Ixxxiv. 
Guerzoni, ii. 9. Oliphant, 166-171, Br. Pari. Papers, ii, p. 182. 



176 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

a new ballot necessary. It was believed that this demon- 
stration by Garibaldi, followed by an active canvass by the 
Nizzard Committee, would so change public opinion that 
when the new plebiscite was taken, the result might go 
against the wishes of the government. Garibaldi, for his 
part, having smashed the ballot-boxes, would sail for Sicily 
— but with very little chance, after such an exploit, of 
support by Cavour or of toleration by Napoleon. 

On the same evening (April 12), Garibaldi held another 
meeting in his own lodgings in the Via S. Teresa, with the 
Sicihan Committee, who strongly opposed the mad Nizzard 
project.! There were present Bertani (who had come from 
Genoa on purpose), Medici, Bixio, and Finzi, one of the 
Directors of the MilUon Rifles Fund. It was agreed that 
Garibaldi should go to Sicily with 200 men armed with 
Enfield rifles, which Finzi undertook to supply from the 
armoury of the Fund at Milan. 2 

Next morning (April 13), Garibaldi started for Genoa,^ 
with the Sicihan and Nizzard plans both in his head. 
Ohphant, who had no share in the secrets of the Sicilian 
scheme, travelled with him in a reserved railway carriage. 
They held scarcely any conversation on the way, because 
Garibaldi was engaged in reading an immense budget of letters 
received that morning. The Enghshman observed him tear- 
ing each of them into httle bits, until the floor of the carriage 
looked Uke ' a gigantic waste-paper basket.' Ohphant 
wondered at the time what all these letters could be, but 
afterwards learnt that they were answers to the call for 
volunteers for Sicily. 

Arrived at Genoa, Oliphant went off, at Garibaldi's 
request, to charter a dihgence in which a first batch of 
conspirators should go to Nice to prepare the way there 
for Garibaldi and his two hundred ballot-breakers. But 
when Oliphant returned from the coach of&ce he found the 



1 Cnspi, Diario, 19, sub. April 12. 

" See Appendix F, sec. I., below. 

3 See Appendix E, below, for the date of his return to Genoa, 



THE RETURN TO GENOA 177 

whole plan abandoned, once and for ever, as being likely to 
jeopardise the more important Sicilian project. 

' I repaired,' he writes, ' to the hotel which Garibaldi had 
indicated as his address, and which was a rough, old-fashioned, 
second-rate-looking place upon the quay.i There was no doubt 
about the General being there, for there was a great hurrying 
in and out, and a buzzing of young men about the door, as though 
something of importance was going on inside. Before being 
admitted to the General, I was made to wait until my name was 
taken in to him. It was evident that precautions were being 
taken in regard to admissions into his presence. After a few 
moments I was shown into a large room, in which twenty or thirty 
men were at supper, and at the head of the table sat Garibaldi. 
He immediately made room for me next him ; and before I had 
time to tell him the result of my mission at the diligence office, 
accosted me thus : " Amico mio, I am very sorry, but we must 
abandon all idea of carrying out our Nice programme. Behold 
these gentlemen from Sicily ... I had hoped to be able to 
carry out this little Nice affair first, for it is only a matter of a 
few days ; but much as I regret it, the general opinion is that 
we shall lose all if we try for too much." ' 

Garibaldi offered to take him to Sicily instead, and it 
was afterwards the regret of Oliphant's life that, owing to 
engagements at home, he refused the chance of representing 
England among ' the Thousand.' 2 

So Garibaldi accepted the cruel severance that hence- 
forth divided his old home from his country, the haunts of 
his boyhood and the house of his parents from the patriotic 
ambition of his life. Those of us who have never undergone 
this bitterness, and yet more those who have never had the 
fortune to love one beautiful place out of all the world with 

^ I have no doubt this was the Albergo delta Felicitcl, a picturesque old 
house still standing high above the quay, on the top of the shops and the 
old arcade, nearly opposite the Palazzo S. Giorgio, in the heart of maritime 
Genoa. For Canzio told me that he well remembered Garibaldi coming 
there on the day of his return from Turin, and, entering the inn, asking 
him (Canzio), ' Will the Genoese Carabineers be ready for Sicily ? ' 

^ Oliphant, 172-179. See Appendix E, below, Laurence Oliphant's Story. 



178 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

the love that is rooted in the memory of childhood, may 
censure him because he thought too fondly of the little har- 
bour with its seafaring folk that nestled close under the 
rugged hill. The cosmopolitan wanderer who wearies of the 
glittering esplanade at Nice, on the wrong side of that hill, 
will not understand what his feeling was. Cavour no doubt 
was right, and Garibaldi could not see why, because he did 
not understand European politics. And so he never forgave 
Cavour, and misinterpreted all his actions in the great year 
that followed. It was a pity. But his own simple words, 
spoken to his aide-de-camp, Bandi, a few days before they 
sailed together to Sicily, carry his condemnation or his 
apology according to the spirit in which we choose to read 
them : — 

' This man, you know, has sold my fatherland. Poor Nizza ! 
Well, all the same I deal with him as a good friend and ask him 
to give me a thousand firearms, so that we can go and get our- 
selves cut to pieces in Sicily. It seems to me not to be asking 
much, eh ? ' 

Of Victor Emmanuel, who for his part also had given up 
the mountain cradle of the House of Savoy, ' he spoke,' says 
Bandi, ' with much affection.' i 

1 Bandi, 3 1 . Mrs. Browning put the pathos of the situation of Garibaldi 
and Nice into the famous poem, Garibaldi, in Last Poems, 1862. 



CHAPTER X 

THE VILLA AT QUARTO. THE PREPARATIONS 

' Degno ei senza dubbio di essere comparato ai migliori romanl, se In lul 
il senso umano non fosse piii profondo e gentile che non potesse per alcune 
parti e per molte ragioni essere in quelli, se egli non avesse di piii quell' 
istinto di cavalleresche avventure che e proprio delle razze nuove e miste,' 
— Carducci, Per la morU di Giuseppe Garibaldi. 

' Beyond doubt he is worthy to be compared to the best of the ancient 
Romans, were it not that in him the sense of humanity was more profound 
and tender than, for many reasons, it could be in them, at least on cer- 
tain sides ; were it not also that he possessed, in a higher degree, the 
impulse towards chivalrous adventures peculiar to young and mixed races.' 

In the oldest district of Genoa that hangs crowded on the 
hillside above the port, the deep, sunless alleys, though too 
narrow for horse traffic, are cheerful with the hfe of an active 
and prosperous population. Here, in the centre of the 
maritime enterprise and democratic patriotism of Italy, 
Mazzini had been born and bred, and from his lands of exile 
he had long exerted over his native town an influence which 
now belonged rather to Cavour and Garibaldi.^ Much 
indeed had changed since Garibaldi himself, as a sea captain 
of twenty-six, had sought to head a rebellion in this very 
city against the House of Savoy, and after waiting in vain 
two hours in the open street for any one to join him, had 
fled over the mountains for his life. 2 

Genoa was Italy's port of departure for the Hberation of 
the South. From Genoa the unfortunate Pisacane had 

' Chiala, iv, p. cxll. 

2 Trevelyan's Gar^ Rome, 18, 19, Gtterzoni, i, 41, 42. 

179 

N 2 



i8o GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

sailed three years before, and Pilo in March of the current 
year. And now in mid April preparations were making for 
a happier enterprise. In the port lay the Rubattino Com- 
pany's steamers, of which the agent Fauche had promised 
one to Garibaldi ; and up the hill, in Bertani's house, sat 
the men who were organising the expedition. Already 
carefully picked volunteers from the patriotic cities of the 
North were coming by invitation to report themselves to 
the Committee and to take up lodgings assigned them in 
the town. During the three weeks that elapsed before the 
expedition started there was a constant increase in the 
number of these strangers, and in the excitement of the 
Genoese at the preparations known to be going on in their 
midst. Secret agents, not only of Cavour, but of govern- 
ments hostile to the Italian cause, were there to watch the 
game, and between April 17 and May i, the Neapolitan 
Foreign Office was at least four several times alarmed by 
premature reports of the departure of Garibaldi. 1 

Within a day or two of his arrival from Turin upon this 
busy scene, Garibaldi wisely withdrew himself from the gaze 
of the curious to a villa at Quarto, some three miles outside 
the town, along the eastern Riviera. The Villa Spinola, as 
it was then called (now the Villa Cosci), rises within its own 
little walled garden, at a place where two country lanes meet. 
It stands in a district of vineyards and scattered houses, a 
quarter of a mile from the rocky sea-coast, from which it is 
completely cut off by the enclosed woods and pleasure 
grounds of the Palazzo Spinola. The Villa Spinola was in 
i860 a yellow painted house of two floors above the 
rez-de-chaussee ; 2 the first floor only was inhabited — by the 
family of Augusto Vecchi. This veteran, one of Garibaldi's 
dearest friends, was no longer able to follow him to battle, 
but in 1849 he had kept close to his side through that fierce 
melee, prolonged from midnight to summer dawn, when the 
French had burst over the last defences of the Janiculum. 
He now received no notice of Garibaldi's visit. He and his 

1 Palermo MS., Polizia, No. 1238. 

s It Is now painted red, and another storey has been added. 



THE VILLA SPINOLA i8i 

son were leaning out of the window when they saw a carriage 
drive up the lane from Genoa, and a man in the ordinary 
black coat of civilisation descend from it at their door. It 
was the General himself, whom they rushed down to welcome 
with transports of joy.i 

From the northern bedroom in Vecchi's apartments on the 
first floor, where Garibaldi slept and held his consultations, he 
could see across the neighbouring vineyards the full sweep of 
the Genoese mountains, their lower slopes clothed in wood 
and dotted with white buildings, the upper ridges naked 
against the sky-Une, crowned by the cross on the top of 
Monte Fascia, and by the old forts used in Massena's 
defence of Genoa, which had enabled the First Napoleon to 
free Italy at Marengo. Here for the three weeks before the 
sailing of the Thousand, Garibaldi lived secluded, often in 
the garden playing at bowls with Vecchi, or digging hard to 
ensure his health for the coming campaign. But he seldom 
went outside the wall of the enclosure, for all around lurked 
spies and busy-bodies, whom the General's younger followers 
from time to time chased down the lane, not without un- 
seemly violence, especially when the prowler was a priest. 
But the Villa was often thronged with those who came and 
went on high matters. Day by day the organisers of the 
expedition appeared from Genoa ; sometimes, too, a 
messenger from Sicily, and sometimes an emissary from 
Cavour.2 

During the first days of his residence at the Villa Spinola, 
Garibaldi hourly expected to hear of the arrival at Genoa of 
200 good Enfield rifles from the MiUion Rifles Fund at Milan. 
He was determined, when these had come, to start for Sicily 
with 200 followers in the small steamer Piemonte,^ and it can 
hardly be doubted, from what we now know of the real state 

^ Jack La Bolina, 114, 115. 

2 My account of the villa and the life there in April-May, i860, is partly 
drawn from notes taken on a visit which I made there with Canzio himself, 
not a year before he died. Since he was one of those who had admission 
to the villa during the preparations, he was able to tell me much. 

^ Appendix F, below, sec. I., and Luzio Giorn. d' It. 



xSz GARIBALDI AST) ri-II THOUSAND 

of Sidhr after the rebel defeat at Caiini on April iS. that 
if he had gone with, this little band, they TSTonld tave perished 
Lr in ahucst unaided struggle with so.ckx) regnlars. Bnt a 
niir~er of aondenis p'?stponed their sailing ircm day to day 
and from "wreek to week, till a some'vrhat fnllei kn:~-f igr of 
tije real course of the SidL&an levolt, and the ccnstant 
streaiQ of eager vclnnteer? into Gen:a. indnred h^~ to 

— ti " -t : _7f r^r.-mnm, as it proved, "with which rvfn ne 

7hf nrst of these hicky delays was cansed by the bqh- 

im-ii :: the 2t:o Enheids iram Mil?p. Befrr? l—^ing 
r^_r_n : : r ^noa Garibaldi had ordered Finzi. thi Z nr : : : r :i 
his Milhon RineE Jnni i: IZilm :: seno t: Z-:i nfrs Lni 

beoinsr the news tram Sidiy bad been so bad th= t he th :-:ght 
:n -Oi lion SmlLlo: iririvro it Ihse " eood ' r^ws 



~ "~ • inr-ri-.e. on A-p-i^ J.6, at xeiigtn ijcnt t^ o_r z in_» 

--^ -"- ::l "'.. ''-""- — "P^h^r^ P" -~— -- T.-\ "htain th— 2''y?- ~. — - ~= - — -^ 

S^ivtmn ;1 Ihlm ::hiiie any :: the Z2,ooo nrearms m 

of the Fnnd.-5 

It has often besi disputed wbether D'AzegHo acted in 



^sryoK, n. 52,33- Sj^siZBicx s .'--- 

■Arofn-^ X. DekTw. sec L X— - . -- . : _' .'• ;_: ^ .-nr, 15, 



THE RIFLES SEQUESTRATED 183 

writing to Rendu a n:-*':i la"rr a-i ~z Ainir^ irrr^azio 
two months later, states that he acted on Lie .7:1 r 77. rut- 
' I had in my hands/ he writes, * 12,000 firearz: 5 : : the 

Garibaldian Subscription, which I sis^ri^ti t-L r: :z7: 
quite other hands than his.' The fear ~l= ^ : iT-iless ; r izzL 
the Director of the Fond, who made lie a7 7_:i7::7- ~l5 
a friend equally of Cavour and of Garibalc: i~ i :T77i:7__7 
his presence ought t; ':ia .-3 ittz 5izi:::t:i7 r7i7i7:7rr if i-7.i7 
any Mazzinian intngiie. Zi: Tir I-:'~t7z:7 "is in :aci 
taken by surprise and much iisiizij : Sr i zy 1 7ts7 :z5-:ij.ty 
as unexpected as it was grave.i Undrr tJiT=c ;:-ii7ions, 
his own view of what Piedmontese policy cngjit to be li ih 
differed profoundly from that of Cavour. swavrd his ir : .-: : z 
in this sudden crisis. An upn^hT — iz '"-^iire r-rryT-.hmg 
else, D'AzegHo felt a strong averaon, ai li : -iTEi-ii :r_ 775 
letters, from the pohcy of arming guerlli zmii iz^Tii: 77.r 
Bourbons in Sicily while keeping 77 iij.i—iTi: rtlaTiiiTi 
with their court at Naples. Atlz :7_r7r::77 is the repre- 
sentative of government on tbe sp::. n-e :;!: : i-znd net to 
allow the Director of the MiUion Rifles Fmi 7: 7i>r 77.r 
arms purchased by that Fund in order to aTeaih 1 Tr.fzi-v 
power.* 

Meanwhile the Committee at Ge-:i "rre "i^^Iti^ iiiL- 
patient for the rifles, and on April 17 Brrraii: sent Crispi to 
Milan to inquire. He found Fiziz: 7J1777 :- ijie iSth, and 
heard what had happened. Ct: 77:7 7::7: Finzi and Cri^ 
went together to Turin. aTii. each had a separate interview 
with Farini, now Victor ErTinaiiiiers Minisier cf rhe iTiterier. 
Farini had in December last, as Dictator cf Ez77l7a s'az':^ 
sympathy with the idea :: :he expediiira "hfTi Crlsri 

s.r~ at tiler iniaview. See J^: _~ . 

7 ,' wfi.^ aofe^ fee lyAzg-Z— : ; -errrr Tr 

- — ^ retwrtatioa tfi»crf-.r ^ i 

/ yaifi^Bsek; :i5_i _ 7 ir\- 
' ■? S^OSl El r " r r ~ ; 1 j ~ 
i V avcnr ; -ii: 

Ht ; : 7.ie saTPe x' r ^ :: ^rr^.^^- 



» Such 


VTiS 


p_-.-^ :_ 


83. 84. 






3 Fi-ir 
Rendu : — 




- -^ ■ 


X - 




ctmservrer. 


le: 




baWi . . 






pcravair ;; 


: 17: 


:: .; ; ; ; 


et eii%-c've- 


les ; 


._s_; i_:--: r 


Now Cavonr's 


policv al 


repuviLares 


2L5 c 


Lishc-esi. 



i84 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

broached it to him at Modena. Now, however, he told 
Crispi that he disapproved an expedition to Sicily at this 
juncture of Italian and European affairs, especially since 
the squadre in the mountains round Palermo had been dis- 
persed. i To Finzi, however, the Minister held a different 
language, suggesting that, although he could not in Cavour's 
absence take upon himself to overrule D'Azeglio, Garibaldi 
might obtain 1500 guns from the National Society, of which 
La Farina was Secretary.^ 

Cavour, indeed, had already, before departing for 
Tuscany on the 15th, offered these arms of La Farina and 
the National Society to aid an invasion of Sicily by Sicilian 
exiles under La Masa.^ La Masa himself was not a man 
whom Cavour could have expected to lead such an expedi- 
tion with success : a popular figure at Palermo in 1848, of a 
somewhat theatrical type, he was devoted and active, and 
had influence on the lower orders in the island, but he was 
quite devoid of military talent. It can hardly be doubted 
that Cavour, when he told La Farina to act with La Masa 
and supply him with arms, trusted the wit of the two 
Sicilians to call in the only man who could save their 
country. They certainly acted at once on that assumption, 
for on April 17th they both came to Genoa to concert 
measures with Garibaldi. On the 19th Crispi returned 
with the news that there was no hope of obtaining the 
Enfields of the Million Rifles Fund. On the 20th a great 
gathering was held in the Villa Spinola, a truce was called 
to all personal and partisan feuds, La Masa and the Sicilians 
gladly put themselves under the orders of Garibaldi, and 
La Farina agreed to supply the weapons of the National 
Society to arm the joint expedition.* On the same day 
Crispi wrote in cipher to his friends in Sicily : — 

1 Crispi, Diario, 19, ^ Fauche (P.), 85 (Finzi' s letter). 

^ La Masa (Sic), iii., is the first-liand evidence. Oddo, 154. Chiala, 
Iv. pp. cxxii., cxxiii, accepts the story. The letter of La Farina to Cavour 
on April 24, La Farina, ii. 313, proves Cavour's complicity in the handing 
over of the arms of the National Society. 

* Crispi, Diario, 19. La Masa [Sic), iii-v. La Farina, ii. 313. 
Ber/atii, ii. 32-34, 



ARRIVAL OF THE MUSKETS 185 

• About the 25th of the month I with others under the com- 
mand of Garibaldi, having arms in plenty, will come to Sicily ; 
be sure to expect us between Sciacca and Girgenti.' 1 

But again there was a fortunate delay. The arms 
ordered by La Farina, registered as cases of ' books,' did not 
arrive at Genoa station until the 24th. Then, by the com- 
plicity of the Vice-Governor of Genoa, Pietro Magenta, to 
whom Cavour had passed the word, some thousand of the 
' books ' were taken by Bixio from the station to the Villa 
Spinola, where they awaited the moment of embarkation. 3 
When Garibaldi saw the volumes unpacked at the Villa, he 
was deeply disappointed to find how much they differed 
from his fine library which D'Azeglio had sequestrated at 
Milan. They were smooth-bore muskets, rusty with age, 
which had been converted from flint-locks into percussion, 
and finally sold as obsolete by the military authorities. 
They were, he bitterly exclaimed, so much 'old iron.' ^ 
But since nothing better was to be had, he and his men were 
ready to face the Neapolitan rifles with the same inadequate 
type of weapon with which they had faced the Austrian 
rifles in the previous summer. 

Meanwhile Victor Emmanuel was making a triumphal 
progress through his newly acquired territories. At the 
moment of leaving Turin for Florence on April 15 he wrote, 
by Cavour's advice, a remarkable letter to his ' dear cousin ' 
of Naples : — 

' We have reached,' so wrote the Northern to the Southern 
King, ' a time in which Italy can be divided into two powerful 

1 Paolucci, Riso, 48, 49. 

2 La Farina, ii. 313, note. Chtala, iv. p. cxxiii, note, and clxii, note, 
Bianchi's Cavour, 94. Biundi, ii. 10. Cam. Dep., June 19, 1863, Bixio's 
own statement. On what day Bixio moved tlie arms from the station to 
the villa I am not certain; according to some accounts, not till May 3, 4. — 
Mazzini, xi. p. Ixxvii. They were moved by boat through the port of 
Genoa. — Bianchi's Cavour, 94. Bertani complained that La Farina would 
only let 1000 out of the 1500 be taken— Ire Pol. 53. Guerzoni, ii. 38, note. 

3 Conv. Eng. Conv. Canzio. Zeusi, 132. Baratieri, 403. Mazzini, xi, 
p. Ixxvii. Sampieri, 22, 



) 

i86 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

states of the north and of the south, which, if they adopt the 
same national pohcy, may uphold the great idea of our times — 
National Independence. But in order to realise this concep- 
tion, it is, I think, necessary that your Majesty abandon the 
course you have held hitherto. . . . The principle of dualism, 
if it is well established and honestly pursued, can still be 
accepted by Italians. But if you allow some months to pass 
without attending to my friendly suggestion, your Majesty will 
perhaps experience the bitterness of the terrible words — too late.' i 

Was this a serious offer of friendship, or an ultimatum to 
serve as the prelude to hostilities ? The King who penned 
the letter had, a few days before, heard Garibaldi's plans 
from Garibaldi's own lips, and had bade him only not to 
take the royal troops. The Minister who approved the letter 
had, nine days before, asked General Ribotti to head the 
insurrection in Sicily, and had yet more recently arranged 
that the muskets of the National Society should be used 
for a similar expedition under other leadership. Possibly 
if Francis II had repented, Cavour and his master might 
have been glad to act in the spirit of their proposal. But 
they knew that he would not repent, that he was plotting 
for their destruction with Austria and the Pope, and one 
cannot help suspecting that the letter was composed rather 
for the satisfaction of their own consciences, and for 
the edification of Europe and of posterity, than for the 
benefit of the Prince to whom its wise words were so vainly 
addressed. 

The reception by the Florentines both of Victor Em- 
manuel and of his Minister showed the warmest gratitude and 
enthusiasm. But Cavour had no time to waste in enjoying 
the sweets of a popularity which came to him late in life and 
which he valued chiefly as giving power to his hand. On 
April 21 he left the King in Tuscany, and sailed from Spezia 
on board Admiral Persano's flagship. Next day he landed 
at Genoa, where he stayed more than twenty-four hours to 
take stock of the situation. 2 

1 CMala, iv. pp. cxx., cxxi. 

2 Persano, 14, 15. Chiala, ili. 240 ; iv, p. cxl. 



SIRTORI SEES CAVOUR 187 

During this brief residence in Genoa, the Prime Minister 
received an emissary from the Villa Spinola.i Garibaldi 
was too angry with the man who had ' made him a foreigner ' 
to open negotiations himself. But he and his lieutenants 
recognised that their success depended on the permission 
and in some degree on the support of the government, and 
Bertani did not raise objections when Sirtori offered to go 
and call upon Cavour.2 

Sirtori is one of the most attractive figures in the Gari- 
baldian epic. Having begun Ufe as a priest, he had studied 
and doubted in Paris. Soon after 1840 he had become a lay- 
man and a philosopher, and in 1848 a soldier. He remained 
all his life a mystic and a Puritan. His emaciated form and 
sad, benevolent, ascetic face marked a man living apart 
from his fellows, and drawing from another and a purer world 
of thought and feehng, the power which enabled him to 
dominate them in council and in war. He stands with Bixio, 
Medici, and Cosenz at the head of the Garibaldini for military 
talent ; and these four fine soldiers were moreover their 
General's best advisers in politics, on which they looked with 
less distorted vision than those civilians whom Garibaldi was 
accustomed to consult. Sirtori, who in his youth of dreams 
and noble illusions had been a more ardent Republican than 
Mazzini, now not only was a staunch Monarchist, but 
realised the necessity that his companions in arms should 
have the government behind them, if the slender chances 
of success which he predicted for the SiciHan expedition 
were not to vanish altogether.s 

Sirtori therefore visited Cavour and laid the whole of 
the plans of the party at Villa Spinola before him, em- 
phasising their lack of means and the dangers of their 
course.4 He acknowledged that a twofold movement was 

1 Sirtori's visit was probably on the morning of the 23rd, as stated in 
Chiala, iv. p. cxii. Some authorities erroneously assign a later date, but 
Cavour was not in Genoa except on April 22, 23, and we know that the 
interview was in Genoa. 

2 Cam. Dep., June ig, 1863. Sirtori's speech. 

^ Sirtori, passim, and many other sources, printed and oral, 
* Mazsini, xi. p. Ixxxi. 



i88 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

designed : an attack on the Papal territories by way of Um- 
bria and the Marches,^ and an expedition led by Garibaldi 
himself against Sicily. Cavour's reply, reported by Sirtori, 
is clear enough : — 

' As to the expedition to the Marches, he said absolutely : 
" No ; the government will oppose it by every means in its power." 
As to the expedition to Sicily, Cavour said exactly these words : 
" Well and good. Begin at the south, to come up again by the 
north. Whe?i it is a question of undertakings of that kind, how- 
ever bold they may be. Count Cavour will be second to none." Those 
were his precise words. He said this naturally referring to aU 
those means by which the government without compromising 
itself could help the expedition. He promised to help it, pro- 
vided the responsibility of the government was completely 
concealed.' ^ 

Cavour then left Genoa for Turin, and next day (April 24) 
a note was sent after him by La Farina, in which the latter 
described the coalition of himself and La Masa with 
Garibaldi, and referred to the muskets which he was 
supplying for their enterprise.^ Yet although Cavour 
was prepared to arm the expedition in case it started, 
he was not eager that it should start, because he greatly 
feared its destruction. The melancholy Sirtori, who 
always told Garibaldi that he would go with him, but 
that he thought they would all perish,* could not have 
described the chances to Cavour in very glowing colours. 
Neither was the Prime Minister deceived as to the collapse of 
the rebellion in Sicily, for Pilo and his compatriots were not 
sending to him those exaggerated reports with which they 
strove to draw Garibaldi to their island. ^ Failure, then, 
was probable, and the scandal before a hostile Europe of 
an unsuccessful buccaneering expedition, coupled with the 

1 This was so. Bandi, 11, 12. Bertani, ii. 33. 

- Cam. Dep., June 19, 1863. See Appendix F, below, sec. II, 

2 La Farina, ii. 313, 

* Crispi, Diario, 20, notes that Sirtori said this at the Villa Spinola on 
the 2^rd, which was the very day when he saw Cavour. 

^ Ma,!zini, xi. p. ixxiii. Paolucci, Pilo, 251, 252, Riso, 47. 



THE ' FIVE HUNDRED ' READY 189 

appalling catastrophe of Garibaldi's death, would, as Cavour 
fully reaUsed, put back Italy's hopes for years to come. 
On April 23 and 24 he sent Frappolli and other agents to the 
Villa Spinola to try and persuade Garibaldi that the risks 
were too great, and that he would perish as Murat and 
Pisacane had perished before him.i These warnings had 
some effect, and Crispi found the General hesitating and 
anxious after FrappoUi's visit on the 24th.3 But, a day or 
two afterwards, the 28th was fixed for the departure, and 
the Vice-Governor of Genoa duly notified the fact to the 
authorities at Turin.s Everything this time was ready. 
La Farina's muskets had arrived. Fauche had been induced 
to provide a second and larger steamer, the Lombardo, in 
addition to the Piemonte,^ and the volunteers chosen and 
enrolled in Genoa by now numbered 500.5 if the ' Five 
Hundred ' had sailed on April 28, instead of the ' Thousand ' 
on May 5, history would have had a sadder tale to tell. 

But again fortune intervened with another propitious 
delay. On the morning of the 27th a telegram arrived from 
Fabrizi at Malta, a source of information more convincing 
to the inhabitants of the Villa Spinola than all the warnings 
of Cavour's emissaries. The telegram was deciphered as 

follows : — 

Malta, April 26, i860. 

' Complete failure in the provinces and in the city of Palermo. 
Many refugees received by the English ships that have come to 
Malta.' 

Fabrizi afterwards declared that a mistake had been made 
in deciphering, and that he had really written :— 

' The insurrection, suppressed in the city of Palermo, main- 
tains itself in the provinces.' ^ 

1 Crispi, Diario, 20. Mazzini, xl. p. Ixxvi. Chiala, iv, p. cxlvil, 

2 Crispi, Diario, 20. 

3 Bandi, 17. Chiala, Iv. p. cl., note. 

4 Fauche, 6 and Fauchi (P.), 28-31, show that the second steamer was 
obtained shortly before April 28. 

* Bandi, 17. Also Bixio, 154, speaks of ' three or four hundred ' ready 
about the 25th. 

« Bixio, 154, 155, and note. Fabrizi, 54. 



igo GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

If so, the misreading represented the truth rather more 
nearly than the message. 

That morning the Villa Spinola was crowded with 
patriots, all bound in one agony of suspense. All eyes were 
watching the door of the little bedroom behind which Crispi, 
La Masa, and Bixio were expostulating with Garibaldi. 
The two Sicilians were ready to drag him to their island at 
any hazard. They were powerfully supported by Bixio, 
who, though he completely lacked their faith in Southern 
promises and Southern valour, was certain that Northerners 
under Garibaldi would not fail, even though the Sicilian 
rising had indeed been suppressed. But Garibaldi, when he 
saw Fabrizi's telegram, had said, with tears in his eyes, ' It 
would be folly to go.' The decision was his own. He weU 
knew that the responsibility was his and not theirs ; 
that he had less right to throw away the fortunes of Italy 
and the lives of her bravest sons, than they had to offer 
him those lives for the sacrifice. 

Before long the two Sicilians came out of the bedroom in 
despair. Bixio stayed on alone with the General, but at 
last he, too, burst out at the door, possessed by one of 
those fits of fury which made all men save one shrink from 
before him. The melancholy word was passed round ' Non 
si parte piu ' {' We're not going '), and in a few minutes all 
had started back to Genoa, leaving the Villa empty save for 
its residents and half a dozen sea-captains who still hngered 
to bid a sad farewell to their chief. The day passed slowly 
in the house of Vecchi, in silence and in gloom. The meal, 
said one who shared it, was like a funeral. A dream, the 
fairest ever dreamed by patriots, had faded from the hearts 
of all who sat at the board. 

After supper, a deputation of a dozen young men from 
the rank and file of the expedition appeared from Genoa, 
demanding to see Garibaldi. Bandi was sent into the bed- 
room to tell him. ' What do they want ? ' ' They say that 
if you won't go to Sicily with them, they are going without 
you." 

* I shall never forget,' wrote the aide-de-camp, * the terrible 



THE EXPEDITION POSTPONED igi 

expression in the eyes of the future conqueror of Palermo at 
hearing my words, and I could have bit my tongue off. "I am 
afraid, am I ? " he said, his face growing as red as a furnace, 
but in a moment he mastered himself and said in a calm voice, 
" Show them in." 

' They came in. I was shaking like a leaf. I would not have 
been in their shoes for all the wealth of the world. The General 
was standing up, with his arms crossed. He nodded in reply to 
their salutations, and looked at them one by one. No one spoke 
for two or three minutes, which seemed to me an age. At last 
the youngest found his tongue — a Genoese tongue — and began 
to perorate. When he had done, another and then another 
held forth. Then they began to talk altogether. . . . 
When they had talked and shouted enough for ten, in God's 
own time they came to an end. Again for a short while 
no one spoke, while Garibaldi's eye spoke more than a hundred 
tongues. 

' But when at last he opened his mouth, and began to speak 
to them in that voice of which the mere sound made men in love 
with him, the poor ambassadors began to grow pale, then red, 
then white as paper, and their eyes filled with tears. Neither 
did Garibaldi's eyes remain dry j dismissing them with an 
affectionate wave of the hand, he turned round quickly and 
went to lean out of the window.' i 

Meanwhile at Genoa all was rage and confusion. Many 
of the volunteers were leaving for home, others crying out 
on Garibaldi's lieutenants to lead them in his stead. Par- 
tisans of Mazzini were heard saying ' Garibaldi is afraid/ 
Heated councils were held among the promoters of the 
expedition as to whether they should go without him. 
La Masa, who was least capable of conducting such an enter- 
prise, offered to lead his fellow Sicilians to their native island. 
His compatriots were divided, some offering to follow him, 
others, like the fine soldier Carini, and Amari himself, who 
had collected money for Garibaldi's expedition, angrily 
refusing to have anything to do with such folly. Bixio in 
his rage offered to steer the ship for La Masa and his Sicihans, 

1 Bandi, 18-23. Bandl says he cannot remember what Garibaldi said, 
though he well remembers how he said it. 



192 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

though if he had started, he would probably not long have 
remained subordinate under such a chief.i 

In this confusion of councils Crispi seems to have kept 
his head best. He induced his fellow Sicilians to wait a few 
days, clearly perceiving two things, that it would be useless 
to go without Garibaldi, and that Garibaldi would be only 
too glad to go if a ' new fact ' could be provided. ^ Crispi set 
himself to obtain this ' new fact.' On the 27th, he sent a 
cipher telegram to his friend Agresta in Sicily : — 

' Not having received by this courier any letters from you 
here, there is hesitation, and I fear I shall not succeed in getting 
the expedition to start. The news received by this steamer is 
no better, and for twenty-two days we have not got one letter 
from Sicily which gives any precise news. Here everything is 
ready, even the steamer. It is possible we may end in 
coming.' ^ 

On the evening of April 29 Crispi's ' new fact ' came to 
hand, in the shape of certain mysterious telegrams, letters, 
and dispatches. It has been said by some of his comrades 
in arms that he forged them, but the evidence is not deci- 
sive.4 Some say it was a telegram from Fabrizi,^ others that 
it was news from Crispi's correspondents in Sicily whom he 
had been so busily dunning for good news. In any case these 
documents described the insurrection as having revived in 
the mountains above Palermo, a statement to which Pilo's 
recent action after his arrival in Plana dei Greci gave some 
faint colour of truth. ^ 

With these papers in their hands, on the evening of the 
29th, Bixio and Crispi in Genoa felt so sure of persuading 

1 La Masa {Sic), vi, vii. Bandi, 23-25. 

2 Bandi, 23. La Masa {Sic), p. vi. 

3 Paolucci, Riso, 50, 51. 

* Tiirr's Risposta, 5, 6. Bandi, 29. Another Sicilian of the Thousand, 
Campo, suppressed bad news and put about false good news in order to 
get Garibaldi to go, and this was recorded as a meritorious action by his 
family. — Campo, 97, 98. But there is no certain proof of the forging of 
documents. 

3 Bertani, ii. 46. Conv. Canzio. 

* See p. 159, above. Paolucci, Pilo, 264, 266. 



THE EXPEDITION REVIVED 193 

Garibaldi when they saw him next day at Quarto, that they 
revived the preparations for the expedition, writing to 
Fauche at nine that night : ' We must see you. The news 
is good, and we resume business. Bixio.' 1 Next morning 
Bixio and one or two of the Sicihans ^ went to Quarto, and 
found their chief at the Villa Spinola, still of the same mind. 
He had already that very day written to the Directors of 
the Million Rifles Fund : ' By now you will know about 
Sicily. The expedition does not start.' ^ But the ' new 
facts ' which Bixio brought in his hand took instant effect 
upon him. ' We will go,' he said, rising from his seat, his 
eyes flashing and his voice vibrating with sudden gladness. 
All remembered that it was the 30th of April, the anniversary 
of the day when he had defeated the French before the 
walls of Rome, and the Villa was decorated with laurels to 
celebrate the double occasion for rejoicing.^ 

By 10.45 ill the morning Bixio had sent off a note to 
Fauche, who was to supply the steamers : — 

' I am returning at this moment from Quarto ; the General 
is coming to Genoa at once, and will be waiting to see you at 
Bertani's house as soon as you can get there.' ^ 

At this council of war, held in Genoa round the sick-bed to 
which Bertani's exertions had already confined him, the 
decision to go was formally taken. Only Sirtori opposed it, 
saying : ' No, I disapprove. I do not believe it will succeed ; 
but if Garibaldi goes to Sicily, with many or with few, I go 
too.' Medici next day expressed similar sentiments.^ 

The whole machinery of organisation was set to work 
once more. Several days were required to reunite the 
volunteers, many of whom had left Genoa in despair, and 
it was now determined to raise the numbers to a thousand. 
For the next five days men worked as they work at the 
crisis of life. Bertani in his bed, his handwriting a mere 

1 Fauche (P.), 32. 2 See Appendix G, below, 

^ Cictmpoli, 135, 136. Letter of April 30. 

* Bandi, 29, 30. Jack La Bolina, 120. ^ Fauche (P.), 32, 33. 

* Bertani, ii. 47. Mazzini, xi. p. Ixxvi. Pungolo, July 5, 1907, 
Medici's letter of May 10, i860. 



194 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

scrawl, dealt with heap after heap of letters offering service 
of every sort from every part of Italy.i Bixio, who had to 
prepare the embarkation, neither ate nor slept, but uncon- 
scious of all other objects, in a trance of sleepless activity, 
for once treated his family with the same brusque inatten- 
tion with which he usually treated the rest of mankind.^ 

Zeal in the work was by no means confined to the 
Committee in Genoa. Private subscriptions were organised 
in town after town by ' Committees for the succour of Sicily ' ; 
at Cremona and elsewhere they openly placarded the walls, 
and almost everywhere collected money in the streets.^ 
The Municipality of Pavia, the city of the Cairoli, voted a 
large sum out of the rates to the Million Rifles Fund 
to help the expedition. The Municipality of Brescia made 
a similiar contribution direct to Garibaldi himself.^ At 
Pavia, at Milan, at Brescia, at Bergamo and elsewhere, officers 
of last year's Cacciatori delle Alpi were choosing out the best 
young men of the place and sending them by train to Genoa. ^ 
At Bergamo, on May 4, the train that was to start with the 
100 young Bergamasques for whom Garibaldi had asked 
and whom Nullo had carefully chosen, was boarded by 300, 
while 200 more, after a fierce struggle to get in, were left 
broken-hearted on the platform. At Milan Nullo forcibly 
got rid of another hundred of them, but not fewer than 160 
from the little Alpine town landed among the Thousand at 
Ma¥sala.6 

A note from the diary of Abba describes some typical 
experiences of a volunteer on the way to Genoa : — 

Parma, May 4. 

' We are starting, seventeen strong, from here, mostly 
students, some working-men, three doctors. Of these latter, 
one, Soncini, is a veteran of the Roman Republic. They say 

^ Milan MSS., ArcMvio Bertani, e.g., Plico, xii, 

* Bixio, 157. 

3 Cremona, 18-22. Amari, ii. 75-78. Milan MSS., A. B., Plico, xii. 
e.g., No. 29. 

* Pavesi, 24. Bertani, reso., 23, accounts, note. 

* Bertani, Comp. 2, ^ V. M. 33, and cf. Elenco, 



THE GATHERING OF THE THOUSAND 195 

that in the train from Romagna we shall find other friends of 
the best. They are coming from aU parts. 

' Great mystery is made of our departure. To hear some 
people talk, not even the air knows. . . . Yet everybody is 
aware that Garibaldi is in Genoa and is going to Sicily, As we 
went through Parma they shook hands with us heartily and 
wished us luck. . . . 

(In the station at Novi). 

' There are some infantry here waiting for a train. Their 
sub-lieutenant comes up to me and says : " Will you wire 
me from Genoa the hour when you start ? " I remain silent. 
The officer looks me in the eyes and says smiling, " Keep 
the secret, but believe me I have not asked with any bad 
intention." ' 

This young officer, named Pagani, deserted next day, came 
on board under the false name of De Amicis, and was killed 
fighting at Calatafimi. He was one of the five ofiicers 
who deserted and went with the Thousand. There would 
have been many more if the organising committee had 
allowed it.i 

The North was rising up to carry Garibaldi to Sicily. 
There was no division of classes or of parties. Cavourian 
Municipalities were voting money, the leisured class was as 
forward in the movement as the working-men — the pro- 
fessional class perhaps most enthusiastic of all. Too rarely 
does an emotion like this, pure of self-interest and far above 
blind race-hatred, sweep along with it a whole people, lifting 
common men into an atmosphere which they seldom breathe, 
and never breathe for long. Those who remember the day 
speak of it as something too sacred ever to return. Italy 
has never seen the like of i860 again, but fortunately she 
did not waste it as she had wasted ' '48.' 

The country was rising up ; what would the Govern- 
ment do ? Would it wish, and if so, would it dare, to stop 
Garibaldi ? When on the last night of April, Cavour heard 
that he had after all decided to start, was the news welcome 
to that anxious watchman ? If Garibaldi had hesitated so 

* Abba, Not_, 5-8, 53, 70. Elenco^ Re deserters, see p, 171, above. 

o 2 



196 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

long, Cavour could not be sanguine of success. The Prime 
Minister had no Crispis and Pilos to deceive him as to 
the real state of the Sicilian insurrection. He may weU have 
thought that the chances were against Garibaldi, for indeed 
they never ceased to be against him until he had taken 
Palermo. The open preparation at Genoa had already 
brought down on Cavour a storm of diplomatic protest. 
Already he saw the threatening shadow of Austrian conquest, 
of French interference. Italy had but one strong friend in 
Europe, and British war-ships could not sail over the 
Lombard plain. Cavour, moreover, was in these very days 
trying to induce Napoleon to withdraw his troops from 
Rome, an advantage which it would certainly be worth 
sacrificing for a successful attack on the Bourbons, but not 
for the sake of a tragic fiasco with Garibaldi in the part of 
Pisacane. Furthermore, he rightly supposed that it was 
Garibaldi's intention, while himself attacking Sicily, to send 
a revolutionary force against the Papal provinces of Umbria 
and the Marches, a step only too likely to involve Italy with 
France. 

On the other hand, as he had said to Sirtori at Genoa, if 
Garibaldi could indeed conquer Sicily, and thence ' come up 
again by the north,' it would prove the means of Italy's 
deliverance. And what other deliverance could he hope for 
from the attack now threatened by the close alliance of 
Austria with Naples and the Pope ? He must strike ere he 
was struck, and Garibaldi was the only weapon he could use 
at once. Lastly, whatever were the dangers of the expedi- 
tion, there were immense dangers in trying to prevent it 
from starting, with the country in this passion of enthusiasm. 

In such a conflict of calculation, embracing perhaps 
these thoughts, and doubtless others unknown to us, Cavour 
ordered a special train to take him from Turin to Bologna, 
there to find the king and decide once for all whether the 
expedition was to be stopped or no. The line was scarcely 
finished in places, and the railway officials at Bologna were 
surprised to hear that the Prime Minister was coming. But 
on May 2 he arrived in a solitary carriage behind the engine, 



THE KING AND CAVOUR DECIDE 197 

and drove straight up to San Michele in Bosco, where Victor 
Emmanuel was lodged. The day before, the King had 
driven with relays of horses from Florence to Bologna, over 
the Pass of the Central Apennines. It had been raining in 
torrents, but as the liberated people crowded the mountain 
road to see their deliverer pass, he would not let the carriage 
be closed.i It was the very road on which Garibaldi 
had been so nearly caught in the wayside inn in September 
1849, and no doubt Teresa Baldini, whose courage and wit 
had saved the hero from the Austrians, now saw her King 
drive past the door.^ 

So Cavour and Victor Emmanuel met in the rooms of 
San Michele in Bosco, to decide between them whether the 
expedition should be allowed to start. It is universally 
agreed that the King was the more eager and sanguine of 
the two, but no one knows what passed between them. A 
writer in a French review afterwards asserted that witnesses 
of the interview had told him that Cavour offered to go and 
arrest Garibaldi with his own hands, but that the King would 
not allow it. Since, however, no one has shown who were 
these witnesses, or what reason there is to suppose that 
any third person was present at all, the historian will do 
well to be sceptical. All that is known is that at this 
interview the King and his Minister finally agreed to let 
Garibaldi go.^ 

The great statesman had made one mistake of detail, 
which nearly proved fatal to Italy and to him. He let the 
Thousand start with La Farina's bad muskets, when they 
might have had the Enfields from the Million Rifles Fund, 
But two things are to be remembered. First, that in all 

1 Rass. Naz.y January i, 1905. 

2 Trevelyan's Gar. Rome, 310, 311. Teresa died in igo8. 

3 See Appendix H, below, for a further discussion of Cavour's probable 
motives. Some light on the attitude of the Government is thrown by the 
fact that, In the first days of May, Farinl, Minister of the Interior, sent a 
message to Bertani. through the Deputy Finall, to the effect that the 
expedition was approved by the Government, but that assurance was 
required that no attack should be made on the Papal States. 
N,A., April 1909, pp. 503-504, Finali. 



igS GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

probability Cavour did not know that the weapons of the 
National Society were bad, since even Garibaldi, who had 
been President of the Society, only found that out when he 
saw them unpacked, and the Secretary, La Farina, had 
most hkely cried up his wares to Cavour. Secondly, that 
after the misfortune of D'Azeglio's sequestration of the En- 
fields, a fact widely known and commented on, it would 
perhaps have been difficult for Cavour afterwards to have 
removed the embargo without openly committing the 
Government to Garibaldi's expedition in the eyes of hostile 
Europe. 

I have now given some account of Cavour' s action in 
April i860. I do not pretend to have fathomed his motives. 
Our knowledge of his correspondence and his conversation 
is still incomplete, and those of his sayings and letters 
which we already know contain, in the same week and 
even on the same day, such strange contradictions 1 that 
it is folly to dogmatise as to the nature of his wishes and 
intentions up to the time of the departure of the Thousand. 
I will only venture to suggest that, until the moment the 
expedition had sailed, Cavour was, at least in some degree, 
an opportunist waiting on circumstance, and unwilling to 
commit himself or his country till the latest possible moment. 
Nor, in the terrible uncertainties of the case, can he be 
blamed for refusing to take a more decided part in thrusting 
Garibaldi out on an expedition where Sirtori and Medici 
thought he would fail, and Garibaldi himself could not at 
first believe in his own chances of success. 

1 See Appendix H, below. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE SAILING OF THE THOUSAND 

'Breve ne I'onda placida avanzasi 
striscia di sassi. Boschi di lauro 
frondeggiano dietro spirando 
eflSiuvi e murmuri ne la sera. 

* * * * 

Italia, Italia, donna de i secoli 
de' vati e de' martiri donna, 
Inclita vedova dolorosa, 

# # * * 

quindi il tuo fido mosse cercandoti 
pe' mari. Al collo leonino avvoltosi 
U puncio, la spada di Roma 
alta su r omero bilanciando, 

stie Garibaldi. Chieti venivano 
a cinque a dieci, poi dUeguavano, 
drappelli oscuri, ne I'ombra 
i mille vindici del destino, 

come pirati che a preda gissero ; 
ed a te occulti givano, Italia, 
per te mendicando la morte 
al cielo, al pelago, a i fratelli.' 

Carducci, Scoglio di Quarto. 

' A short rock-rib that cleaves the placid sea ; 
Behind, the leafy laurel thicket breathing 
Odours and murmurs on the evening air ; 
. . . Thence, Italy, thou queen of ages past, 
Of prophets and of martyrs still the queen, 
Famous, unhappy, widowed lady proud, — 
Thence, Italy, thy faithful sought thee out 
Across the sea. Around his lion's neck 
The puncio wrapped ; the sword that flashed at Rome 
Across his shoulder balanced — so he came. 
And silent came his shadowy companies. 
By fives and tens, then vanished in the gloom. 
199 



20O GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

The Thousand, destined to avenge thy wrong. 
Like pirates to their prey they glided down, 
Hidden from thee they glided, Italy, 
Sea-beggars, begging death from sky and waves 
And brethren, only for thy service sake.* 

The Rock at Quarto. 

In order to secure the passive connivance of the authori- 
ties in the departure of an expedition which they would be 
forced to repudiate, in any event for a few days, and in case 
of failure for all time, it was necessary to act with a formal 
show of secrecy. The Government had taken steps to 
indicate that the embarkation itself must not take place in 
the port of Genoa.^ The plan of operations was therefore 
drawn up as follows : — The two steamers were to be seized 
in the port at midnight, and as quietly as possible, by a 
picked body of seamen, under Bixio, who would take the 
vessels empty out of the harbour. Then, as they sailed 
eastward along the Riviera, they were to meet row-boats 
from Foce and Quarto bearing the volunteers, the pro- 
visions, and the cases of arms. Finally, the bulk of the 
ammunition would be rowed out from Boghasco.^ Men and 
stores would be hauled up on to the steamers at sea, and 
the voyage would begin. 

Much of the plan was common knowledge in Genoa on 
May 5, the busy day that preceded the night of departure. 
The authorities duly kept watch at Cornigliano and S. Pier 
d' Arena, to the west of the city, leaving undisturbed the real 
places of embarkation to the east.^ But one detail of the 
conspiracy was still a secret. Except Bixio, not even those 
who were to seize the ships knew which those ships were 
to be. The truth was that the Piemonte and the Lombardo 
were to be taken without leave from Rubattino and his 

1 The British Consul, Mr. Brown, who watched the embarkation with 
great interest, next day wrote to his government : — ' The authorities had 
to my certain knowledge taken measures to prevent the embarkation from 
taking place in the port.' Bv. Pari. Papers, 12, p. 3, and 16, p. i. 

2 For this chapter see Map V. at end of book, route marked. 

3 Bianchi's Cavour, 94. There were indeed the usual two gendarmes 
In the crowd that witnessed the embarkation at Quarto, but they confined 
their action to an ineffectual protest against the cutting of the telegraph 
wires ordered by Garibaldi. Bandi, 39-41. 



BIXIO SEIZES THE STEAMERS 201 

Company, according to a most secret agreement of Garibaldi, 
Bixio, and Bertani with Fauche, the Company's agent. 
Although arrangements, afterwards liberally fulfilled, had 
been made to compensate the Company in case of the loss 
or injury of the ships, it had been determined not to confide 
in the timid patriotism of Rubattino and the shareholders. 
It was a wise caution. For so little did these men care for 
their country in proportion to the security of their profits, 
that in the middle of June, when all Italy went wild with 
joy over the taking of Palermo, they celebrated the occasion 
by dismissing Fauche because he had enabled Garibaldi to go 
there. The expedition of the Thousand owed nothing to the 
class of mind whose patriotism consists in a calculation of 
the profit on shares. Cavour, with that desire to do justice 
to the Garibaldini which distinguished him from many of his 
followers, tried to open to Fauche another career by way of 
compensation for the excellent post which he had lost, but 
Cavour died, and with him perished the hopes of Fauche, 
and of many more. Rubattino, who was erroneously 
believed to have given the steamers, received the praise of 
historians for the deed of the man whom he had ruined for 
doing it, and his statue stands to-day on the quay-side 
whence the Piemonte and Lomhardo were taken so sorely 
against his will. Fauche lived many years, rich only in the 
love of so poor a man as Garibaldi, and passed away ' poor 
and forgotten in the civil hospital at Venice.' 1 

Before midnight on May 5, a party of men, chiefly con- 
sisting of experienced seamen and engineers, had assembled 
one by one on board a hulk named the Joseph in a remote 
corner of the port of Genoa, close to the eastern Hght-house. 
At the right moment Bixio appeared among them, and 
clapping on his head his kepi of lieutenant-colonel, said in 
his masterful voice, ' Gentlemen, from this moment I am in 
command ; listen to my orders.' Only then did his sub- 
ordinates learn the identity of the vessels which they were 
to seize. In a few minutes they were rowing in two large 
boats towards the Rubattino steamers, which lay at a pier 

* Appendix J, below. 



202 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

in the most public part of the harbour, opposite the main 
fagade of the town. Bixio assigned the Piemonte to one 
boat-load and the Lombardo to another. Swinging them- 
selves noiselessly on board, they roused the crews from 
sleep, presenting their pistols for form's sake at the drowsy 
men. As soon as they heard the name of Garibaldi, all 
gladly submitted, and some lent a hand in the work. The 
' piracy ' was regarded as a good joke by captors and captives 
alike. But several hours passed before the steamers were 
ready to move. First the fires had to be lit and stoked. 
Then it was thought necessary to wrap the chains in cloth 
to prevent noise in hauling up the anchors, for the pirates 
had still some fear of the government, and much more of 
the Company. Their accomplice Fauche watched from the 
balcony of his house, almost opposite the Rubattino pier, 
sickening with suspense, as the night waned, and still the 
two masses, motionless at their place, loomed clearer through 
the melting shadows. Then it was discovered that the 
engines of the Lombardo were out of order, and the Sicilian 
engineer Campo had to be sent on board from the Piemonte 
to aid his compatriot and brother-engineer Orlando before 
that too was set right. And even then the Piemonte had to 
take the Lombardo in tow to get her out to sea. It was 
long past three in the morning before Fauche, with a 
deep sigh of rehef, saw the two dim shapes begin slowly to 
move from the pier and vanish in the darkness of the 
harbour. 1 

Meanwhile, in Bertani's house, high up the hill in the 
heart of Genoa, the night had passed amid grave anxiety. 
The money, without which the Thousand could not sail, was 
to be supphed by Finzi out of the Milhon Rifles Fund, from 

1 A few arms were put on board in port, but most at Quarto. Span- 
garo's letter,^ wan, ii.8o,8i. Bz;vzo, 158, 159. Elia, ii. 7, and Ella's letter in 
Jack laBolina, 126-128, note. Castiglia(La Masa (5zc.),xi,xii). Mem. 337. 
Conv. Canzio. Conv. Campo. Fauche (P.), 35. Elia, who commanded 
the Lombardo under Bixio that night, told me that no representative of the 
authorities, high or low, came aboard during these operations, and that 
therefore the story told in Becchio is untrue. Canzio also denied its 
truth. 



ON THE WAY TO QUARTO 203 

which Garibaldi was allowed to draw anything except actual 
weapons of war. Besides large sums already spent in fitting 
out the expedition, 90,000 lire were to be taken to Sicily, of 
which 30,000 had reached Bertani's bed-side that day en- 
closed in a letter from Finzi, and the remaining 60,000 were 
due to arrive by the last train from Milan about ten at 
night, in the hands of MigUavacca. This officer reached 
Bertani's house in good time with the money, but more than 
half of it was found to be in the form of a draft on the Bank 
of Genoa, which would be of little use in the hill-towns of 
Sicily. Migliavacca was sent in haste to rouse some of 
Bertani's rich commercial friends, while Nuvolari, who was 
to take the money down to the steamers and go with the 
expedition, waited at Bertani's with growing impatience as 
the minutes passed. At length Migliavacca returned with 
the change in so many hundred gold pieces [marenghi) in 
time for Nuvolari to carry safely on board the whole of the 
90,000 lire.'^ 

Throughout the evening of May 5 the volunteers of the 
expedition had been leaving Genoa by the Porta Pila and 
walking, singly or in groups, to the appointed places of 
embarkation. Some forty or fifty turned off to Foce, where 
a few boats awaited them. All the rest followed the high- 
way to the shore below Quarto. For the whole three miles 
the road was lined by the people of the city, who stood un- 
covered and in silence as they passed. There were no chants 
de depart, no flags and folly, no vulgar revelry and boasting. 
All were too deeply moved, too uncertain of the event. 

At Quarto, the large wooded grounds of the Palazzo 
Spinola, dividing Garibaldi's residence from the sea, were 
this night flung open for his use, and the Thousand, as they 
arrived there, dispersed themselves in groups imder its 
trees, or sat on the rocks below, watching the cases of 
muskets being piled into the boats. On the embanked 



^ See Appendix K. Out of this sum, 70,000 lire were spent on cam- 
paign up to the time of the capture of Palermo at the end of the month. 



204 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

high-road of the Riviera, which ran close along the top of 
these sea-worn rocks, stood a dense crowd of friends, parents, 
wives, sisters, and sweethearts come to witness the departure. 
Some kept their eyes fixed on the gate of the Spinola grounds 
through which the figure of Garibaldi must soon emerge, 
while others imparted in low whispers the last blessings and 
farewells to those whom they only half expected to see again. 
Not a few of the Thousand themselves, like the poet Nievo, 
undauntedly shared Sirtori's view that they would none of 
them return alive. Medici himself, though he was of much 
the same opinion, came like the rest to embark, but on the 
shore at Quarto a letter from Garibaldi, couched in affec- 
tionate terms, was put into his hands. It began, ' It is 
better that you should remain behind, and you can be more 
useful so, ' and asked the defender of the Vascello to absent 
him awhile from a soldier's felicity, in order to organise 
and dispatch reinforcements both to Sicily and to the Papal 
States.i 

A stranger, coming by chance upon that scene, would 
scarcely have been able to distinguish the men who were 
starting for the war from those who were there to see them 
off. The immense majority of the Thousand had no arms 
in their hands — for the muskets were to be dealt out during 
the voyage — and they were dressed in the peaceful garb of 
artisans, merchants, gentlemen, or students. A very few 
wore Piedmontese uniforms. It was only on the voyage 
that fifty red shirts were distributed, so that when they 
landed in Sicily one in twenty wore the famous dress that 
they all adopted after the taking of Palermo. ^ The 
Genoese carabineers, about thirty-five strong, could be dis- 
tinguished at Quarto because they already carried the rifles 
which were their own property ; some of them wore a grey 
uniform, but others were in plain clothes.^ 

' Medici, 4, 5; Mazzini XI., p. Ixxvi. 

* Abba, 94. Sampieri, 22. Bandi, 68. Abba, Not. 34. 

s Menghini, 77, 420, 421. Abba, 66. Abba, Not. 16, 25, 283-290. 
Canzio told me that he was in plain clothes, but that most of the other 
Carabineers were in a grey uniform. 




THE ROCKS AT QUARTO — II. 

(Frona a photograph taken in the 'sixties, given to the author by the late 
General Canzio.) 

The figure seated in the foreground is Augusto Vecchi, Garibaldi's host at the Villa 
bpino a. The trees in the left background are those of the grounds of the Palazzo 
bpnio a. Garibaldi passed out of those grounds on to the road and the rocks, thrcuah 
the little gateway visible to right of the lodge. X marks the point of embarkation. 




GARIBALDI IN HIS 'PUiNCIO,' 1860. 
(From a photograph taken in Naples that autumn.) 



THE ROCK AT QUARTO 205 

Meanwhile in the Villa Spinola a small group of men were 
waiting for the General to leave his bedroom. He was 
alone effecting some change in the black garb of civilisation 
which varied by the Piedmontese uniform m '59, he had 
endured for the last decade. At length the door opened 
and they saw him for the first time in the outfit which he 
wore for the rest of his hfe, whether at home, in Parhament, 
or in the field. Loose grey trousers of a sailor cut, a plain 
red shirt no longer worn like a workman's blouse as m '49, 
but tucked in at the waist, and adorned with a breast- 
pocket and watch-chain, a coloured silk handkerchief knotted 
round his neck, and over his shoulders a great Amencan 
puncio or grey cloak, which he now wrapped about him as 
a protection against the night air. A black felt hat com- 
pleted the figure which will be familiar to the Itahan as 
the symbol of his country for long ages to come. His 
face was radiant and his bearing elate, for now that after 
long hesitations he had made up his mind to go, he at least 
had no shadow of a doubt as to what the issue would be. 

Carrying across his shoulder his heavy sword with the 
belt attached to it, and followed by his staff ofiicers, he 
stepped out of Vecchi's villa, crossed the lane into the 
grounds of the Palazzo Spinola, walked down the path 
between its trees and shrubberies where many of his men 
were waiting, passed through the little gate in the angle of 
the wall, and so emerged on the open road beside the sea. 
The crowd gathered there in the twilight gazed at him in 
silence as he crossed to the rocks, and descended by a Uttle 
broken foot-track to the bottom of the cliff.i There he 
found himself standing on a rib of rock, beside a tiny bay a 
few feet deep and two or three yards long, into which boats 
could be brought one at a time. Here the embarkation took 
place. 

1 The foot-track is still clearly visible on the west side of the present 
memorial pillar. I had the honour of going down it with Canzio himself, 
a year before he died ; he said to me on this path, ' How many who came 
down here with me that night are now dead.' The silence and gravity of 
everyone during the whole of the dignified scene at Quarto was remarked 
on by eye-witnesses, e.g., I. L. N., May 19, i860, p. 467. 



2o6 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

It was about ten o'clock that Garibaldi and the first 
flotilla put out half a mile to sea to await the steamers. 
Many of the Thousand remained for the second journey, as 
there were not enough boats to take all at once. There was 
a swell upon the waters, but the night was calm, cold, and 
bright, and the string of boats could clearly be seen moving 
out in the track of the moonlight. The beauty of the night, 
the stars, the silence of men and Nature deeply affected 
every one. Garibaldi, wrapped in his puncio, sat in the 
boat immersed in silent joy. His whole being expanded 
once more, as on those nights on the pampas when he 
had ridden and slept with Anita under the stars they 
loved. 

' O night of the fifth of May,' he writes, ' lit up with the fire of 
a thousand lamps with which the Omnipotent has adorned the 
Infinite. Beautiful, tranquil, solemn with that solemnity which 
sweUs the hearts of generous men when they go forth to free the 
slave. Such were the Thousand, . . . my young veterans of 
the war of Italian liberty, and I, proud of their trust in me, felt 
myself capable of attempting anything. ... I have felt this 
same harmony of soul on all nights like those of Quarto, of Reggio, 
of Palermo, of Volturno. 

There had been another such moonlit night, scarcely to 
be forgotten in his meditations as he sat there off Quarto, 
floating on the tide that was to carry him at last to fortune. 
He must have well remembered that on such a night as this, 
eleven years before, on the upper waters of the Adriatic, the 
Austrian squadron had discovered Italy's last fugitives by 
the light of the August moon.i 

But the midnight hours wore on, and still the belated 
steamers were, not in sight. Among the men who had been 
four or five hours in the boats tedium succeeded to the first 

1 Trevelyan's Gar. Rome, p. 287. Of the night of August 2, 1849, Gari- 
baldi wrote — ' The moon was full, and it was with a terrible misgiving 
that I watched the rising of the mariner's companion, contemplated by 
me so often with the reverence of a worshipper. Lovelier than I had ever 
seen her before, but for us, unhappily, too lovely — the moon was fatal to us 
that night. East of the point of Goro lay the Austrian squadron,' 
Mem. 249. 



THE EMBARKATION 207 

enthusiasm of embarkation, and even Garibaldi grew im- 
patient and ordered his boat to be rowed on towards Genoa 
to find Bixio. The morning was almost grey, and the earliest 
peasant-girls were passing along the high-road to market in 
Genoa, ere the long-expected signal of lights in the national 
colours flashed across the western waves. As day dawned, 
the two steamers hove in sight, already having on board the 
small body that had rowed out from Foce. Then a wild 
scene began. Men and cases of anns were dragged up the 
ships' sides pell-mell, and as fast as each boat was emptied 
it plied back to the shore for a second load. It was a fierce 
scramble. Men clung to the ship's ladder four or eight at a 
time and struggled as for their lives to get on board, for the 
long delay in port rendered it necessary to start at once, 
even at the risk of leaving a few comrades behind. Gari- 
baldi had no wish to be found near Genoa in broad day- 
light. Good haste was made, but the sun was gilding the 
mountain tops before the Piemonte and the Lombardo moved 
off with their freight of men, ' How many are we all told ? ' 
asked Garibaldi. * With the sailors we are more than a 
thousand,' was the reply. ' Eh ! eh ! quanta gente ! What 
a host ! ' said this strange general, and set his aide-de-camp 
thinking.! 

One thing was not yet embarked — the ammunition. 
The bulk of the gunpowder and a few additional firearms 
had been entrusted by Bixio to a score of young patriots, 
who were to bring the precious cargo out from Bogliasco, 
a few miles east of Quarto. Bixio had also appointed some 
local seamen as their guides, who proved to be a very bad 
choice. The whole party had set out from Bogliasco early 

1 The description in the text from p. 203 onwards of the arrival and 
embarkation of the Thousand at Quarto is the result of collating the 
following accounts by eye-witnesses : Conv. Canzio, Menghini, 415, 416, 
420. Bandi, 37-43. Br. Pari. Papers, 12, p. 3. Capuzzi, 7, 8. Conv. 
Campo. Times, May 14, i860, quotation from Ricciardi's letter in Sidde 
and from letter in Opinione Nazionale. Tiirr's Div. 15, Nievo, 346, 354, 
Abba, Not. 15-19. Abba, 24-31, Mem. 338, 339, Castiglta (La Masa, 
{Sic.) xii., xiii.). 



2o8 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

in the night, but the guides had insisted on rowing in front 
of the heavy ammunition boats in a hght skiff of their own, 
showing a lantern in the stern. After twenty minutes the 
lantern was extinguished and the rascals made off, in order 
to go smuggling on this propitious occasion when the 
authorities had deliberately relaxed their watch on the 
landing-places between Genoa and Portofino. To this day 
no one knows whether the smugglers felt ill-will towards the 
expedition, the success of which their treacherous conduct 
imperilled. They may perhaps have thought that the 
ammunition-boats could hardly fail to sight the steamers at 
daybreak, even without special guidance, and indeed if the 
young men had been content to wait where they had been 
left in the lurch, off Bogliasco, they would almost certainly 
have been picked up by the expedition as it passed at eight 
or nine in the morning. But they did exactly the wrong 
thing. Not knowing that theii comrades were several hours 
late in starting from port, they rowed westward all night in 
hope of meeting them, and were unfortunate enough to pass 
them, unseeing and unseen, probably close off Genoa, in the 
small hours. In broad daylight they saw with rage and 
despair the smoke of two steamers far away to the east, 
making round the promontory of Portofino. i 

Garibaldi, on the Piemonte, alarmed by the absence of 
the ammunition-boats, waited half an hour or more and then 
held on his course, hoping to find that the Lomhardo, which 
had gone on in front, had taken the gunpowder on board 
unnoticed. The Piemonte could soon overhaul its more 
slow-moving companion. At Camogli, near Portofino 
promontory, Canzio, of the Genoese Carabineers, was sent 
ashore to obtain oil and grease for the engines of the two 
steamers, and it was probably during this halt that Garibaldi 
hailed Bixio and ascertained that they had set out to con- 
quer Sicily and Naples without ammunition. ' Let us go 

1 Mazzini, xi, pp. cliii-clix. There were two large boats xo carry 
the ammunition from Bogliasco supplied by Bixio (see Bologna MSS., 
Bixio), ' due battelli di carico^' 



THEY SAIL FOR TUSCANY 209 

on all the same,' he said, and directed his course first towards 
the Tuscan coast. 1 

Nearly 11 50 fighting men had boarded the steamers.2 
Garibaldi commanded the Piemonte, and Bixio the slower 
and more capacious Lombardo.^ The decks were crowded, 
and at first some could not even find room to sit down. 
There was no food except a little water and biscuit. Gari- 
baldi was radiant, feeling his foot on deck once more and 
enjoying the management of the ship, and a large proportion 
of Genoese and others were equally at home by land or sea. 
But almost all the Milanese and the men from the Alpine 
cities succumbed on that first day to the heavy rolling, 
and not a plank of Italy's Argo but was occupied by the 
prostrate forms of heroes in distress.* 

Garibaldi, while in the villa at Quarto, had determined 
that as soon as he was out at sea he would run straight for 
the coast of Tuscany, and that for three reasons. In the first 
place, as early as May i, he had warned Zambianchi that he 
would detach him with a portion of the expeditionary force 
to invade the Papal States by way of Orvieto and Perugia ; 
with this end in view Garibaldi had caused to be printed at 
Genoa proclamations calling on the Pope's subjects to rise, 
and had brought them with him on the ship.^ In the second 
place, on May 2 he had given a rendezvous in the Straits of 

1 This paragraph is the result of collating the statements, slightly 
contradictory as to time and place of events, in Castiglia {La Masa {Sic.) 
xii., xiii.) Conv. Canzio. Menghini, ^16, 417; 420 (Canzio's diary). Abba, 
31, 32. Cvispi, Diario, 20. Tiirr's Da Quarto, 4, 5. Bixio, 162. Ciampoli, 
144. Mem. 339. 

^ 1089 landed in Sicily, sixty-one of those who sailed from Quarto 
were left at Talamone, and four or five new men joined there. {Elenco, 
Pittaluga, 172. Bandi, 63-65.) 

3 The two steamers were built as follows : — 

length breadth draught tonnage 
constructed metres metres metres tons H.P, 

Piemonte Glasgow, 1 851 50 7 3 180 i6o 

Lombardo Leghorn, 1841 48 7-40 4.23 238 220 

FaucM (P.), 28, 31. Conv. Canzio. 

* Amari, ii. 81. Menghini, 416-418, 420. Bandi, 42. 

^ Bandi, 34, 35. Pittaluga, 16, 17, 49, 72. Ciampoli, 139-142, Rome 
MSS. V,. E. R, M,, 225, 95, Canzio MS. 4, Relazione about Talamone. 



,10 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

rrVtrir^e^ell companies and captai^^^^^^^^^ 
one or two drills of the improvised regiment. This could 
not well be done on the crowded decks at sea_ 

Rnt to these considerations was now added a new ana 
siiJ^nUsit, W^enthey^^^^^^^^^^^ 

rn::mrn:trlhthicJ to a^ht . they ever reached 
"' tunniL through the Straits of Piombino. between Elba 

along the ^.d coast o^^b Tuscan^^^^^^^ .^ ^^^ ^^^^^_ 

^ft'S t'he end^'ofhS adventurous escape. A little after 
nL tl the morning the Pie,nonte came to anchor off the 
miserable coast village of Talamone.* 

1 Amari. ii. 77- Fmlug.l4-^6 ^ZtlMim la. that he changed 
. Garibaldi afterwards wrote to 1"^ "°Jf '' ' f *'; ^j^^ ^„thoritie, cited 

r/e^nMo ar'op larhiLchi an/to meet Sgaralhno. 



CHAPTER XII 

TALAMONE AND THE VOYAGE 1 

r^.l^T/'T'^^ Stamp Garibaldi as a General and statesman of the highest 
rank ; defeat, ruin, and death will canse him to be remembered as a Oufx 
otic adventurer of dauntless courage but weak judgment, who ha th?own 
away his life In a desperate filibustering attempt. The expedition to SicTlv 
may m future be ranked with William of Orange's landing in England or 
LTL X " ^-^^'^^-^-^^ - Calabna..-r.-.4 leadinfartlcle: 

-We know that our sympathies and the judgment of history will dis- 
tinguish between the cases of the filibuster and felon, and that ol tTe hero 

1688. -Lord J. Russell m the House of Commons, May 17, i860. 

As the engines of the Piemonte stopped beside the quay 
of Talamone, Garibaldi went ashore to win over the official 
world, clad for this special purpose in his Piedmontese 
General s uniform. No sooner was he gone than the men 
were called together on deck to hear his proclamation read 
At the same hour another copy was being read on board 
the Lomhardo, still many miles behind along the coast 
The proclamation, which identified the Thousand with the 
volunteers of the Alpine campaign of the previous summer 
ran as follows : — ' 

'The mission of this corps will be, as it always has been 
based on complete self-sacrifice for the regeneration of the father- 
land. The brave Cacciaiori delle Aipi have served and will serve 
their country with the devotion and discipline of the best kind of 
soldiers, without any other hope, without any other claim than 
the satisfaction of their consciences. Not rank, not honour not 
reward have enticed these brave men. They returned to' the 

' For this chapter see Map V. at end of book, route marked. 
211 = - 



212 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

seclusion of private life when danger disappeared. But now 
that the hour of battle has come again, Italy sees them once more 
in the foremost rank, joyful, willing, ready to shed their blood 
for her. The war-cry of the Cacciatori delle Alpi is the same 
as that which re-echoed from the banks of the Ticino twelve 
months ago — 

' Italia e Vittorio Emanuele, 

and this war-cry, from your lips, wiU strike terror into the 
enemies of Italy.' 

These words inspired the hearers with sober enthusiasm 
and pride. Only a small group of unreconciled Mazzinians 
heard with dismay the name of Victor Emmanuel. They 
had hoped that when Garibaldi once got to sea in his red 
shirt, the old Republican instincts would revive in him, and 
that he would hoist the ' neutral banner,' the tricolour of 
Italy unstained by the cross of the House of Savoy. In the 
eyes of their party, the object of the Sicilian expedition was, 
as Mazzini told Karl Blind, ' that the movement was to be 
continued up to, and into, Rome, and that then a Consti- 
tuent Assembly was to be convoked there for the expression 
of the will of the nation,' which might haply be for a Re- 
public. Garibaldi's proclamation ran counter to these hopes. 
When, therefore, the belated Lomhardo reached Talamone, 
a council of Republicans from both the ships was held on 
board her, to decide what they should do. Antonio Mosto, 
the bearded Genoese who commanded the Carabineers, 
Crispi, Savi, and others decided to go on. But Onnis and 
one or two more of the pure gospel refused to fight for a 
King, and walked off inland out of the page of history .1 
Garibaldi, v/hen he heard what had happened, expressed 
bitter resentment. His dislike of Mazzini and the Mazzi- 
nians had not been diminished by his recent quarrel with 
Cavour.2 Mazzini himself was at this moment hastening 
from London to Genoa, in the hope of going with the 

^ Abba, Not. 22. Abba, 35, 36. Crispi {Lettera), 322. Mazzini, xi,, 
pp. Ixxxiii., Ixxxiv. Blind, 57. Paolucci, Pilo, 242. Menghini, 418. 

2 / Mille, 15. Conv. Canzio. Bandi, 67, ' disse ira dl Dlo contro 
Mazzini e i suoi ciechl seguaci.' 



THE GULF OF TALAMONE 213 

Thousand.i If he had come in time, it may be doubted 
whether Garibaldi would have consented to take him. 

Except these few Republicans, the Thousand were far 
too well pleased with their cause and their leader to join in 
debating his proclamation. They were more pleasantly 
employed ashore recovering from the miseries of the voyage. 
It was a clear spring morning. Some bathed in the sea, 
some searched the friendly but poverty-stricken village for 
eatable food, while many of that learned regiment admired 
the scenery and discussed the antiquarian and Hterary 
associations of the Maremma.2 Close at hand the coast 
ran southwards to Orbetello, through unreclaimed marsh- 
land and tangled brushwood. The low, desert shores of the 
Gulf of Talamone stretched thus for ten miles, bounded on 
the north by a high hill, on the spur of which Talamone 
and Its old war-tower projected into the sea, and on the 
south by the promontory mountain of Argentario, on the 
side of which Porto S. Stefano was clearly visible. 'Among 
the lagoons dividing Mount Argentario from the mainland 
lay the fortress of Orbetello. The possibility of proceeding 
to Sicily depended on securing coal from the government 
store at Porto S. Stefano, and ammunition from the fortress 
in the lagoons. 

At this crisis Garibaldi employed a wise and even artful 
diplomacy. He chose as his principal agent Colonel Tiirr 
the Hungarian. Tiirr, who died in 1908 full of years and 
honour, began his career as patriot when, in January 1849 
he deserted the hated Austrian flag at the persuasion of 
some Italian officers. During the war of 1859 Cavour, who, 
together with Napoleon, was in close negotiation' with 
Kossuth as to the possibility of a Hungarian insurrection, 
had sent Tiirr to join the Cacciatori delle Alpi and represent 
among them the unity of the ItaHan and Magyar cause 
Partly for his country's sake, partly for his own, he was 

\Rome MSS. Mazz. letters, V. E., No. 2429. Letter of May 8 
in SicUia ' ''''''^" ^"""^^ ^'^ ^ raggiungere Garibaldi per andare con luj 
=» Capuzzi, 10, 12. Bandi, 51, 52. Menghmi, 418, 419, Abba, Not. 26. 



214 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

treated with special favour by Garibaldi. With his long 
moustache, his fine person and carriage, his disinterested 
virtue and his inconsiderate valour, he was the perfect type 
of a Hungarian cavalier. He had not, perhaps, the military 
talent of Bixio, Medici, or Cosenz, but as a diplomatist he 
had no superior among the Garibaldini, and it might be 
supposed that his connexion with the Court and the 
official world would be known to the commandant of 
Orbetello.i 

That officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Giorgini, had the dull 
round of his garrison life broken in upon at about two in the 
afternoon of May 7 by a visit from Tiirr, who had driven 
along the coast road from Talamone. The Hungarian pre- 
sented his letter of introduction from Garibaldi, explained 
the situation, told the story of the lost ammunition, and 
asked for all the powder in the fortress. Never, perhaps, 
was an officer who wished to combine his military with his 
patriotic duty placed in a more difficult position. 

* You are a soldier,' he said to Tiirr, * and you know what it 
means to give up the arms and ammunition of a fortress without 
orders from one's superior officer.' 

' But what,' answered the resourceful Magyar, ' if you get 
the orders from the King himself ? It will be enough for you to 
send him this letter which I will write.' 

Sitting down there and then, Tiirr wrote to Trecchi, the 
King's Garibaldian aide-de-camp : 

' Dear Trecchi, — Tell his Majesty that the ammunition des- 
tined for our expedition has been left in Genoa. We beseech his 
Majesty to order the Commandant of the fortress of Orbetello to 
provide us with all that he has in his arsenal.' 

Handing this letter to Giorgini, Tiirr observed that as there 
was neither telegraph nor railway, it might be a week before 
an answer could reach the Maremma from Turin ; that it 
was impossible for Garibaldi to wait at Talamone, because 

1 Mem. Star. Mil. i. p. 11. Chiala's Pol. Seg. 31-47. Adamoli, 117, 
118. Abba, 46. Mario, 244. My estimate of Tiirr as a man and a soldier 
is based upon facts and conversations too many to be cited here in full. 



TtJRR GETS THE AMMUNITION 215 

in less than a week the European powers would have inter- 
fered and the Neapolitans would have completed their naval 
and military defences against a raid which was already 
known to have left Genoa. Therefore, said Tiirr, Giorgini 
must send the ammunition before he receive the King's 
reply. 

' Colonel,' the other answered, ' you place me in a 
terrible situation. But since you assure me that the 
undertaking has started under the auspices of the King, 
I put the arsenal at your disposal.' So saying, Giorgini 
went to Talamone and saw Garibaldi, who, dressed as a 
Piedmontese officer, heartily thanked his comrade for 
helping him at a pinch. The commandant of Orbetello 
was shortly afterwards arrested and brought before a 
court martial, by whom he was acquitted. ^ 

Meanwhile several wagons were loaded up and the stores 
taken from Orbetello to Talamone. The ammunition was 
partly in the form of cartridges, partly of loose powder 
packed in pine-wood boxes. Even now there was not really 
enough ammunition for the muskets, and some of the Thou- 
sand went through the campaign from Marsala to Palermo 
with no more than ten cartridges a man.2 Other war-like 
supplies were added, including bullets used by the Bersaglieri, 
which proved a bad fit for the muskets of the Garibaldini,^ a 
hundred Enfield rifles, and lastly two bronze cannon cast in 
1802, and an old culverin {colubrina) which had been out of 
date long before the era of Napoleon. These three, together 
with two more garrison pieces of like antiquarian interest 
found by Garibaldi in the old tower of Talamone, were taken 
to Sicily, mounted there on wooden carriages roughly put 
together, and so dragged about and occasionally fired as the 
field artillery of the Thousand.* The fame of these five 



1 Tiirr's Da Quarto, 6-9. Mem. Stor. Mil. i. 1-34. This decision of 
July 5 was annulled on appeal on August 29 by the Supreme Military 
Tribunal, but this quashing was only a question of law and did not affect 
Giorgini' s immunity from punishment. 

2 Mazzini, xi. p. Ixxviii., note. ^ Conv. Canzio. 

* Sampieri, ig-22. Tiirr's Da Quarto, S. Bandi,^^. Orsini, ^g {N.A.). 



2i6 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

veterans, transformed by Southern imagination into twice 
as many ' rifled cannon ' carr^dng for ' four miles,' made the 
Sicihans take courage and the Neapohtan soldiers take 
thought, and had no small moral influence on the result of 
the campaign.! 

The 7th and 8th of May were busy days at Talamone. 
WTiile the organisation of the main force destined for Sicily 
proceeded apace, sixt\'-one unfortunate men who had sailed 
•with the rest from Quarto were formed into a separate 
company and sent, together \\'ith the Tuscan detachment 
from Leghorn, to invade the Papal States under Zambianchi. 
This expedition is called in Italian history ' The Diversion,' 
because it was intended to attract the notice of the Neapoh- 
tan government away from Sicily to its northern border. 
But it was not intended merely as a diversion. It was part 
of the national policy of 1S60, conceived by Mazzini in 
Februarj^^ and carried out in the autumn by Garibaldi and 
Cavour, of placing the Neapohtan and Papal pro\dnces 
' between two fires,' kindled, the one in Sicily and the other 
in the Marches. 

Zambianchi's expedition was not a mere diversion, be- 
cause it was meant to succeed. His men were armed by 
Garibaldi with good rifles, which would better have gone to 
replace some of the WTetched muskets distributed among 
the Thousand. Zambianchi was to traverse the north of 
the Papal States eastward by way of Orvieto and Perugia 
into the Marches. Garibaldi had made inquiries about the 
Liberal Committees of those districts and beheved that they 
W'Ould rise at the signal of Zambianchi's approach. The 
insurrection was then to be aided by Bertani and ]\Iedici, 
whom Garibaldi had left at Genoa, with orders to organise 
reinforcements alike for Sicily and for the Papal States. 
Zambianchi's orders were to place himself under the com- 
mand of Medici, if Medici came to his help. From the 
Marches he was to penetrate southwards into the Neapohtan 

1 Paolucci, Corrao, 130, 131. Ccnv. Salinas. 
' Mazzini, xi, pp. xlv-xl\'ii. 



ZAMBIANCHI'S EXPEDITION 217 

kingdom. Rome was for the present to be left alone, 
though Garibaldi hoped to enter the capital of Italy at the 
end of the year, when he himself returned north by way of 
Naples. 

The fate of this worse than foohsh expedition under 
Zambianchi can be briefly told. He marched up country' to 
Scansano and Pitigliano, where he waited several days. On 
the night of May 18-19 he invaded Papal territory and pro- 
ceeded a few miles towards Orvieto as far as Grotte di Castro, 
where he made his first halt. The men were taking their 
mid-day siesta in the houses of the town when the Papal 
gendarmes galloped past the sentinels into the market-place. 
A skirmish followed in the streets, and the Garibaldini 
repelled the attack. But they were now thoroughly dis- 
heartened, they distrusted and dishked their leader, who 
had shown neither sense nor valour in the fight, and they 
scarcely numbered 230 all told. Fearing the approach of 
the Papal army, they waited in Grotte till the evening, and 
retired by night across the frontier. Next da]/ they were 
disarmed by the Italian government. They were not, 
however, placed under arrest, and were able to go out in the 
later expeditions to Sicily and share Garibaldi's victories at 
Milazzo and Voltumo. 

Only their leader, Zambianchi, was kept in prison until 
February 1861, and then banished to America ; he died 
upon the voyage. He was a man of immense physical size 
and strength, probably a sincere patriot, but a bully, a 
ruffian, and if not a coward at least an incompetent blun- 
derer. Garibaldi never in his hfe made a worse mistake, in 
every sense, than when he sent this man, whom he knew to 
have shot priests in Rome in 1849,1 to invade the Papal 
States at the head of a totally inadequate number of Gari- 
baldini who despised his mihtary incapacity and want of 
initiative, and strongly resented being placed under the 
orders of a murderer. Lucidly the whole scheme was so 
absurdly inadequate that it did not by partial success bring 

1 Trevelyan's Gar. Rome, 150. 



2i8 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

scandal and embarrassment on Italy and jeopardise the 
support which Cavour was able to give Garibaldi himself. i 

Meanwhile the organisation of the more fortunate 
Thousand who were destined for Sicily proceeded during 
May 7 and 8 by the seashore in and near Talamone. Their 
exact number was 1089. Thirty-three were afterwards 
officially classified as non-Italians, but this small foreign 
element comprised fourteen Italians of the Trentino, and 
Giuseppe Garibaldi of French Nice ; the ' American ' in the 
same list was his son Menotti, born of Anita on the Pampas 
in the war of the wilderness. Four, including Tiirr, were 
Hungarians. The greater part of the Thousand came from 
the cities of North Italy. Bergamo headed the list with 
160, Genoa sent 156, including the Carabineers, Milan 72, 
Brescia 59, and 58 Pavesi followed Benedetto Cairoli. 
Among the exiles Austrian Venetia was well represented. 
Forty-six Neapolitans of the mainland, and about as many 
Sicilians, sailed to free their homes. Seven, including Lady 
Russell's friend Braico, were revered as being among the 
' Neapolitan prisoners ' who had suffered for ten years in 
Procida or Montefusco. It was noticed that they spoke but 
seldom, and then with gentle utterance, seeming to desire 
victory not for the sake of vengeance, but in order to open 
the prison doors to the many thousands of innocent people 
who were still enduring the agonies that had darkened their 
own lives. 2 

A large proportion of the Thousand were students from 
the Universities, not yet engaged in earning their livelihood. 
But those who have classified the Thousand according to 
professions which they followed in i860 or embraced in later 
years, roughly estimate the result at 150 lawyers, 100 

1 Pittaluga, passim. Guerzoni, il. 48-57. Nuvolari, 122. Medici, 
4-6. Milan MSS. A. B., Plico, xii., No. 14. Bandi, 11, 12, 33-35, 55-57. 

2 Elenco. There is also an incomplete list in Tiirr' s Div. 346-372 ; 
cf. De Cesare's F. di P. ccliii.-ccliv., to Abba, 73-75. The main body of 
the Tuscans, who had come from Leghorn in the A delina, were sent with 
Zambianchi, and for this reason alone Tuscany does not figure largely in 
the list of the Thousand. 



THE THOUSAND 219 

doctors (who used to fight until the battle was over and then 
tend the wounded), 100 merchants, 50 engineers, 20 chemists, 
30 ship-captains, 10 painters or sculptors, 3 ex-priests, one 
lady (Crispi's wife), besides gentlemen of private means, 
government employees, authors, professors, journalists, and 
many small tradesmen such as barbers and cobblers. But 
perhaps half the whole number were workmen of the towns. 
There was hardly a single peasant. The average age was 
very young, but there were a fair number of veterans, and 
practically all the officers and the majority of the rank and 
file had fought in the Alps the year before, or in one of the 
earlier campaigns of Italian Liberation. 1 

Such were the men whom Garibaldi now divided into 
eight companies of infantry, the staff, the artillery, twenty- 
three scouts (guide), who had to dispense with horses, and 
the Genoese Carabineers. Each of the eight companies had 
its captain named by Garibaldi, and each captain chose his 
own lieutenants and non-commissioned officers, subject to 
the General's approval. The territorial principle was largely 
observed in forming the companies and choosing the officers. 
The eighth company was entirely from Bergamo. The 
seventh, or ' students',' company, under Benedetto Cairoli, 
contained as many as fifty-two Lombard students, chiefly 
from his own University of Pavia, besides twelve merchants, 
thirty proprietors and civil servants, and thirty-six artisans 
and workmen, all men of intelligence and education, deeply 
devoted to the Cairoli family which had a wide influence in 
that part of Lombardy.2 The first four companies formed 
the first battalion under Bixio, the last four the second 
battalion under Carini, an able and daring Sicilian officer.^ 

Thus rapidly organised, the little army was drilled on the 
sea-shore, and Garibaldi held his first review. On the night 
of May 7 they slept round their camp fires.* But on the 

^ Abba, 73. Elenco. It Is hard to distinguish in the list between 
master workmen and their journeymen employees. 

^ Abba, 59. Adamoli, 1-9. 

^ The eighth company was in fact formed at Porto S. Stefano, the other 
seven at Talamone. Turf's Div. 22, Bandi, 52. Menghini, 418. 

* Capuzzi, II, 



220 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

evening of the 8th, the second day ashore, an incident 
occurred, unimportant in itself, but highly significant of the 
difficulties overcome by Garibaldi in imposing the discipline 
of war and the authority of the officers on men who regarded 
themselves as free volunteers and in some sense the equals 
of every one except their General. Some of the Thousand 
behaved rudely to the inhabitants, as they never did after 
they reached Sicily. When their officers interfered they 
refused to obey. These officers, of whom Nino Bixio 
could certainly not have been one, were unwilling to 
draw swords on their men in the streets of Talamone, and 
sent Bandi on board the Piemonte to fetch the General. 
When he heard what had happened, ' he glared at me,' says 
Bandi, ' with the eyes of a wild boar.' He went ashore and 
in speechless fury ordered the whole army aboard. The 
mutineers withered up at the sight of his anger, which was 
in fact the main safeguard of disciphne throughout the 
expedition.! 

That night no one dared to approach his cabin, for his 
wrath was prolonged by the continued absence of his commis- 
sary Bovi, who had been sent to Grosseto to purchase food 
for the voyage. Garibaldi chafed at the delay, for every- 
thing else was ready for their departure, and he knew that 
the Neapolitan cruisers must every hour be strengthening 
their watch against him round the coasts of Sicily. He 
retired to rest, leaving orders that when Bovi appeared 
he was to be thrown overboard. Just before daybreak he 
arrived with the provisions. Garibaldi came out of his 
cabin, while all held their breath to see in what temper he 
had woken up. When he saw the culprit, he puffed at his 
cigar and said, ' Good morning, Bovi ; you made me very 
angry last night.' All breathed again, and the faithful Bovi, 
who was in fact an excellent commissary, wiped his eyes 
with his one remaining hand (for he had lost its fellow in 

^ Bandi, 53, 54. Abba, 82, 83. Clearly the incident occurred on the 
night of the 8th, as Abba says, not on the 7th, as Bandi narrates. For 
Capuzzi and other authorities show that the Thousand slept on shore on 
the night of the 7th. 



TO SEA ONCE MORE 221 

the defence of Rome), and explained the difficulties which 
had caused the delay. The General heard him out, and 
dismissed him with * Eh, va bene.' If Garibaldi had not 
been feared as well as loved, he could not have extracted, as 
he always did, the utmost service that each man could 
render to the cause. ^ 

The provisions were now on board, and between three 
and four o'clock on the morning of May 9 the Piemonte and 
Lomhardo hauled up their anchors, while the inhabitants of 
Talamone, who bore no ill-will for the incident of the pre- 
vious night, cheered them and wished them luck as they 
departed. They sailed across the gulf to Porto S. Stefano, at 
the foot of Monte Argentario. There they landed again for a 
few hours, to enable the steamers to coal. A deputation 
was sent to the government coal store, with orders to 
negotiate politely, but as Nino Bixio was in the party, the 
parleying was soon cut short, and the official in charge was 
seized and shaken until he gave up the keys of the shed. 
The steamers were next invaded by a large body of Ber- 
saglieri who had deserted from the garrison of Orbetello, in 
order to take part in the expedition. Garibaldi, though he 
felt sorry for the poveri ragazzi, fulfilled his pledge to the 
King and had them all hunted off the ship, except three or 
four stowaways who succeeded in escaping the chase.2 

During the morning, the old muskets supplied by La 
Farina were distributed among the eight companies, and 
called forth general amazement at their extreme badness. 
It was difficult even to fix the ill-fitting bayonets securely 
on the muzzles.3 

Early in the afternoon ^ of May 9 the two vessels finally 
stood out to sea and steered a course for the north-west 
corner of Sicily, avoiding the ordinary routes. The men 
had now been divided afresh between the two ships, in a 

1 Menghini, 419. Tiirr's Da Quarto, 12. Bandi, 58-62. 

2 Crispi, Diario, 20. Menghini, 421. Abba, 83, Abba, Not, 30-32. 
Bandi, 63-65. 

* Baratieri, 403, 404. Abba, 84. Menghini, 421. Abba, Not. 31. 
•* Crispi, Diana, 20. Castiglia (La Masa (Sic. xv.). 



222 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

more orderly manner than had been possible at Quarto. 
On the Piemonte, besides Garibaldi and the staff, sailed 
most of the artillery and the seventh and eighth companies 
from Pavia and Bergamo. The first six companies and the 
Genoese Carabineers, amounting to 650 or 700 men, were in 
the more capacious Lombardo under Nino Bixio.i This Hot- 
spur soon established his authority according to his usual 
methods. At a reply from a corporal which he considered 
impertinent, he threw a plate at the man's face, and sum- 
moning every one on deck, addressed them with a ferocity 
of intention that subdued and even captivated his audience. 

' I command here. I am everything. I am Czar, Sultan, 
Pope. I am Nino Bixio. I must be obeyed like God. If you 
dare to shrug your shoulders or to think of mutinying, I wiU come 
in my uniform, sabre in hand, and cut you to pieces.' 

Everyone knew that he would be as good as his word, and 
liked him none the less. Loud cheers greeted this extra- 
ordinary speech. When the applause had died away, the 
Sicilian La Masa jumped up and began delivering a florid 
oration in praise of Bixio, in the style in which he so often 
charmed the crowd at the street corners of Palermo. But 
the northerners paid him scant attention, and Bixio strode 
angrily away, conceiving for La Masa a bitter contempt 
which grew steadily throughout the campaign.^ 

Next to Garibaldi, Bixio was the chief cause of the 
success of the expedition. He well earned his title of ' the 
second of the Thousand.' For the danger of that little 
army, strong in individual valour and self-sacrifice, was the 
lack of constraining authority, and this want was filled up, 
mainly indeed by the veneration and fear felt by all for 
Garibaldi, but partly also by a wholesome terror of Bixio's 
half-insane but sometimes well-directed violence. 

Meanwhile, on the Piemonte, the able Sicilian, Giordano 
Orsini, whom the General had put in command of the 

1 Bologna MSS., Bixio's Notes. 

2 Abba, Not. 34-36. Menghini, 421. Capuzzi, 15. Zeusi, 133, 
Bandi, 67. Bologna MSS., Bixio's Letters, for his views of La Masa. 




NINO BIXIO. 
(From a photograph about IhgO.) 



THE GENERAL'S SONG 223 

artillery, set up a laboratory on deck, where all took their 
share in casting bullets and manufacturing cartridges. At 
dawn of May 10 no sail was in sight. Only a shoal of 
dolphins followed the ships, while the work on the am- 
munition and the singing of the songs of '48 beguiled the 
hours on the lonely by-paths of the sea.i 

Garibaldi, who had once more discarded the Piedmontese 
uniform assumed at Talamone for the red shirt and puncio, 
was in a mood of unalloyed and radiant happiness. The 
coming struggle for liberty was to be fought out alone by 
him and his chosen band, in the mountains of a romantic 
island almost totally unknown to the world, under con- 
ditions making real for once that poetry of war and patriotism 
after which his whole life was one long aspiration. His 
aide-de-camp Bandi found him in his deck-cabin, spectacles 
on nose to mark the hour of hterary labour. The verses which 
he was composing sang of tyranny and of revolt, though not 
in such melodious numbers as Carducci has often found for 
the theme. He told Bandi that he wished his young men to 
set his words to music and sing them as they charged on 
the battle-fields of Sicily. Bandi returned on deck with the 
General's poem, and soon collected in a circle the literary 
and musical talent of the Piemonte. All were in high spirits, 
and not incapable of poking fun— even at him. The con- 
cert proceeded, with strange sounds, to uncouth tunes, amid 
suppressed laughter, until Garibaldi's head appeared out of 
the cabin. ' What music is that ? Have you composed it ? ' 
' No, General ! Not I ! ' ' Eh, diavolo ! '—and the head 
was withdrawn. 3 

> CasUgUa{LaMasa (Sic), xv.), Bandi, 66, 70, Capmzi, 14. Zasio, 30. 
* Bandi, 70-72. Zasio, 30, 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE LANDING OF THE THOUSAND AT MARSALA 

' He either fears his fate too much, 

Or his deserts are small, 
That dares not put it to the touch, 
To gain or lose it all.' 

Montrose. 

While Garibaldi was still at sea the diplomatic storm had 
broken over Cavour's head. Prussia, though she had held 
apart from the reactionary league formed against Piedmont 
during the winter, roundly declared that had she any vessels 
of her own in Italian waters she would herself stop the 
pirates. Russia held similar language, protesting that only 
her geographical position prevented her active interference. 
But Austria, the most formidable of the three, would promise 
no help to the government of Naples, though expressing the 
strongest sympathy.^ England for more than a fortnight 
gave no official sign, and Lord John's first communication on 
May 22 seemed chiefly concerned with the rumour that if 
Piedmont acquired Sicily or Naples, France would obtain 
Genoa or the island of Sardinia, as she had obtained Nice 
and Savoy, in return for her protection against Austria. 
When somewhat reassured on this point by a promise from 
Cavour, our Government allowed itself to take the same 
friendly interest in Garibaldi's chances of success as the 
British public had taken from the first announcement of his 
departure on so sportsmanlike an enterprise. 2 

France was, in fact, the Power from which Cavour had 

1 Bianchi, viil, 291, 292, 658. Chiala, iv. pp. clxxiv, clxxv. 

2 Br. Pari. Papers, 12, pp. 17-28. 

224 



CAVOUR'S EQUIVOCAL ORDERS 225 

most to fear. Throughout the revolution of i860 Napoleon, 
with more than his usual uncertainty of purpose, was per- 
petually vacillating between the desire to protect the 
Neapolitan government against the movement for Italian 
unity, and the desire to reform or overthrow it by some 
Liberal revolution engineered in French interests. 1 On 
May 7, before any other Power had protested, his Ministers 
sent a menacing expostulation to Turin, within a day 
of Garibaldi's departure from Quarto. 2 And they followed 
up their protest by stopping the projected withdrawal of the 
French troops from Rome. With revolution beginning in 
the South, Napoleon could feel no certainty that Rome 
would not be attacked before the year was out, and when 
he had proposed to withdraw his own garrison, he had by 
no means intended to allow the Italians to occupy the 
Papal city.3 

On May 7, Cavour telegraphed to the Governor of Cagliari 
in Sardinia : — 

' Garibaldi has embarked with 400 volunteers on two Rubat- 
tino steamers for Sicily. If he enters a port of Sardinia arrest 
the expedition. I authorise you to employ, if required, the 
squadron commanded by Count Persano,' 

Next day he sent a further explanatory telegram :— 

' Do not arrest the expedition out at sea. Only if it enters a 
port.' 4 

Cavour afterwards declared that he sent the orders to arrest 
Garibaldi because he heard that the expedition was to be 
diverted against the Papal States. ^ But in his telegram of 
May 7, he had mentioned Sicily as being Garibaldi's destina- 
tion, and it therefore seems more probable that his real 
purpose in sending the message was to save his own position 

1 Elliot, 31, 32, 43, 44. 
" Chiala, iv. pp. clxxi., clxxii. 

* See Appendix L, below. ' Why the French evacuation of Rome was 
stopped.' 

^ Chiala, iii. 245, 246. 

' Chiala, iv. p. clxxvi., and iii. 248 (Letter of May 14). 

9 



226 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

in face of the diplomatic world, by enabling him to declare 
that he had given orders for the arrest. He had little cause 
to fear that Garibaldi would be so foolish as to sail into a 
port occupied by vessels of the royal navy, and none to 
suppose that the Piedmontese admiral would be ' strict in his 
arrest.' Persano, indeed, received on May 9, at Cagliari, 
these strange orders to stop Garibaldi if he met him in a port 
of Sardinia, but not out at sea. Suspecting, partly no doubt 
from the conditional nature of the order, that the arrest was 
not really intended to take place at all, he wrote on the same 
day (May 9) from Sardinia to Turin to ask Cavour if the 
message was seriously meant. In a few days the answer 
came back by wire that ' the Ministry had decided ' for the 
arrest. The Admiral, choosing to assume that this meant 
that Cavour differed from the rest of the ' Ministry,' tele- 
graphed back, * Ho capito,' ' I understand.' It mattered 
little what he understood, for by that time Garibaldi had 
safely landed in Sicily .^ 

Late on the evening of May 10, Cavour, having heard 
that Garibaldi had put into the Gulf of Talamone, and there- 
fore supposing that he had diverted his attack from Sicily to 
the Papal States, gave orders that a war vessel should go to 
Porto S. Stefano and arrest the Thousand if they were still to 
be found on the Tuscan coast. But, as we have seen, they had 
left Porto S. Stefano for Sicily that very day.^ Once assured 
of this fact, the government thenceforth used every un- 
official means to secure the success of the expedition. Its 
policy was sketched out in a correspondence between 
the two greatest Italian statesmen, the Tuscan and the 
Piedmontese. On May 15, Ricasoli wrote to Cavour that 
it would be wrong as well as dangerous to oppose obstacles 
to the enthusiasm of the country for Garibaldi's patriotic 
enterprise. 

' By as much as the Royal government ought to impede any 

' Persano, 17-20. Chiala, iii. 247. 

2 Chiala, vi. 562. La Farina, ii. 317-319. See also Ricasoli, v. 50. 
Farini's despatch of May 11 says the Navy is to arrest Garibaldi, ' s'ils le 
trouvent encore dans les eaux de Rome et de Toscane.' 



A NIGHT ADVENTURE 227 

attack on the Papal States at this moment, by so much ought it 
to tolerate and even support and help the aid given by Italians 
to the Sicilian insurrection, if that can be done covertly and at 
least without compromising ourselves too much. We cannot 
sufficiently proclaim before Europe the duty that binds Italians 
to help their compatriots who are subject to the bad governments' 
{ai mail governi). 

On May 23, Cavour replied to Ricasoli, — 

' I entirely agree with you about Garibaldi's expedition. I 
have nothing to add, except that we must save appearances so 
as not to increase our diplomatic difficulties. France has shown 
less displeasure than I expected.' 1 

Already the editors of the Cavourian press had hailed 
the expedition of Garibaldi as the rallying point lor all 
sections. He had, they declared, by sailing with the war- 
cry of ' Italia e Vittorio Emanuele,' united the country, 
and put an end to party strife. ^ 



On the night of May lo-ii the Lomhardo and Piemonte,^ 
wholly cut off from the world which the news of their voyage 
had stirred to such conflicting passions, were plying their 
way through the darkness of the northern Sicilian waters. 
The ships' lights were extinguished, and all were on watch 
for the enemy. Garibaldi had gone ahead in the more 
swift-sailing Piemonie, in the hope of catching sight before 
sundown of the island of Marettimo, the outermost of the 
JEgSides, visible in clear weather at a distance of sixty miles. 
Darkness fell before he could achieve his purpose, and he 
was fain to put about and sail back to find the Lombardo, 
cursing his own folly for having lost sight of the ship that 
carried two-thirds of his fighting force. Bixio meanwhile, 
in the gravest anxiety at losing touch with the Piemontc, 
held on his course as fast as his crank engines would allow, 
growing more and more doubtful whether he should ever 

* Ricasoli, v. 59. Chiala, iii. 252. 

2 Cory. Merc, May 10. 

' For their route to Marsala see Map V. at end of book. 

Q 2 



228 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

see Garibaldi again. Suddenly, about ten at night, he was 
aware of a vessel coming to meet him through the darkness. 
All attempt to exchange signals failed, and Bixio, desperately 
resolving that it was one of the enemy's cruisers, ordered 
Elia to steer the ship against the intruder, and all hands to 
prepare to board. As he lay stretched over the prow of the 
Lombardo, sweating with excitement in his eagerness to be 
the first on the enemy's deck, he heard a well-known voice 
hail him across the waters, ' Captain Bixio ! ' ' General ! ' 
' Why do you want to send us to the bottom ? ' So ended 
an incident which caused as much misery to the actors as 
any of the dangers fromx the real enemy which they after- 
wards encountered on land. For on board the Piemonte 
also the midnight assailant had for some minutes been taken 
for a Neapolitan cruiser. Garibaldi had seen the lights of 
the enemy's squadron around him — so at least, he believed, 
but whether rightly or wrongly it is impossible to say — and 
for that reason had not dared to show the arranged signals 
for Bixio's benefit. i 

If the two steamers had lost each other that night, they 
would probably never have met again, for it had been 
impossible to decide on a rendezvous where the disembarka- 
tion should take place. Palermo, guarded by some 20,000 
regular troops, was the objective of the campaign, and its 
capture would mean the instant acquisition of the western 
half of Sicily, possibly of the whole island. Garibaldi had at 
one time thought of running ashore as near to the capital as 
the Gulf of Castellamare, but had abandoned the plan as too 
hazardous. A landing-place was required within a few days' 
march of Palermo, but not so dangerously near it as Castella- 
mare. It had therefore been decided to land somewhere 
between Trapani and Sciacca — most probably at Porto Palo 
or at Sciacca itself. But the place and hour of disembarka- 
tion would of necessity be determined by the position and 

^ Castiglia {Sic. e la Masa, xvi.). Bixio, 164-166. Capuzzi, 16, 17. 
Giusta, 5. Bandi, 75, 76. Ahha Not, 36, 37. Elia, ii. 22-24. Mem. 
341, 342. The usual slight variations in detail will be noticed in these 
accounts. 



SICILY IN SIGHT 229 

movements on the next morning of the dozen NeapoHtan 
cruisers guarding the coast-Hne of Sicily against the ex- 
pected invasion, of which no fewer than four, the Valoroso, 
the Stromboli, the Capri, and the Partenope were patroUing 
the thirty miles run between Trapani and Mazzara.i 

At dawn on May 11 the first beams of the sun touched 
^Etna's cap, and all the Sicilian headlands one by one, 
until in the west the ray struck on the bare rocks of Monte 
Pellegrino that overhangs Palermo city, even as when 
Hamilcar the Carthaginian made his strange encampment 
on its summit ; and, last of all, Eryx, the famed acropolis of 
Astarte and of Aphrodite, that looks out over the islands of 
the iEgades and the baths of ocean. 

The two ships that bore the fate of Italy were still far out 
to sea, but drawing nearer and nearer to those guarded 
coasts. Before daylight many of the Thousand, crowding 
on deck to catch the first sight of Sicily, mistook for land a 
transitory bank of clouds. But with the rising sun appeared 
the summit of the island of Marettimo, towards which they 
were steering, and ere long Sicily herself was disclosed before 
their eyes.^ 

They sailed parallel with the coast from Cape S. Vito, 
keeping out from Trapani, where were shoals and a Bourbon 
garrison. Running through the archipelago of the .^gades, 
' almost grazing Marettimo,' they left Favignana on the east.s 
In the prison there lay Nicotera and the other surviving 
leaders of Pisacane's expedition.* Garibaldi and his men 
knew this well, and gazed at the island, thinking how 
soon either they themselves would be dead or these their 

J De Cesare, ii, 202. Franci, i, 175, 182. Castiglia {Sic. e La Masa, 
xvi-xx). Mem. 342. Pittaluga, 9, 10. Tiirr's Da Quarto, 13. Crispi, 
(4), 646. Bandi, 77, 78. 

- Crispi, Diario, 20. Bandi, 77. 

^ Calvino {Guardione, il. 426). Ella, who commanded the Lombardo 
under Bixio, writes to me that they steered for Marettimo, ' leaving on 
their left the island of Favignana.' Marettimo they left on tlieir right, as 
Tiirr told me, and as all authorities imply. 

■* See pp. 68-70, above. 



230 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

forerunners and comrades be released. Nicotera himself, when 
he saw two vessels go by flying no flag, wondered what 
they could be. * Nevertheless,' as he afterwards told his 
deliverers when he met them next month in Palermo, ' I 
felt in my heart I know not what, and a strange gladness 
came over me. Then, when later I heard the cannon 
[from Marsala], I suddenly remembered Garibaldi, and 
guessed the secret of those two mysterious steamers.' i 

Garibaldi's first plan had been, on emerging from among 
the TEgdides, to keep well out to sea, half way across to 
Cape Bon in Africa, in order to avoid the cruisers along the 
coast,2 and later in the day, when he had rounded the 
western face of Sicily, to make a dash for Porto Palo or 
Sciacca. Various persons, including Castiglia, the excellent 
seaman who was captain of the Piemonte, claim to have been 
his advisers in the change of plan by which he determined 
instead to run straight from Marettimo to Marsala.^ 

The sight of two war vessels anchored off the port of 
Marsala caused only a momentary hesitation, for Garibaldi, 
after examining them through his telescope, pronounced 
them from their build to be British. In this belief he was 
confirmed some minutes later by some Englishmen on board 
a sailing vessel northward bound from Marsala, who, as they 
passed the Piemonte, replied to inquiries that there were 
no Neapolitan vessels at the port. As they sailed on past 
the Lombardo, Bixio, after trying in vain to throw them 
despatches wrapped in a piece of bread, shouted to them to 
give the news in Genoa that Garibaldi had landed at Marsala. 
They answered with a cheer, and their well-built craft shot 
on over the water. 

At full steam ahead Garibaldi made straight for port. 
On the way, about noon, he fell in with a large Sicilian 

• Bandi, 79, 205. Nicotera, 43. Abba, 91. Calvino [Guardione, 
ii. 427). 

- He must already, when threading the iEgades, have narrowly missed 
falling in with the Valoroso, which was cruising ' among the islands of 
Trapani ' that day. Castiglia {Sic. e La Masa, xx.). 

■' Mem. 342. Castiglia {Sic. e La Masa, pp. xvi-xix), TUrr's Da 
Quarto, 13. Crispi (4), 646. Bandi, 76-78. 



MARSALA 231 

fishing-boat, which he took in tow, as it would serve for the 
work of disembarkation. The master, a man named 
Strazzera, came on board shaking with fear, but when he 
had tasted a glass of wine, and heard his own language 
talked by fellow-Sicilians, he recovered enough courage to 
give what news he had. He believed that a battalion of 
Neapolitan infantry had recently left the town, and he was 
certain that the Neapolitan war vessels had quitted the port 
some hours before, on a cruise towards Sciacca. These 
vessels, indeed, were still visible not many miles away to 
the south-east ai Marsala, and were already turning back 
to overhaul the new-comers. If they could return and 
open fire within two hours, they would yet be in time to 
stop the disembarkation and slaughter Garibaldi with all 
his men. It was a race for more than life and death. 1 

The modern city of Marsala, of Arab name and founda- 
tion, was the successor of the Phoenician and classical 
Lilybaeum. The port of the ancient city had been on the 
north side of the town, and tlie shallow modern harbour on 
the south side, with its long mole and lighthouse, was an 
entirely artificial creation, due to the enterprise of successive 
generations of English merchants, who had settled down at 
this remote and half-civilised spot, to doctor the country- 
made wines of Western Sicily into their excellent ' Marsala.' 
The city, still in i860 four-square within its medieval walls, 
stood a few hundred yards back from the sea. But for the 
activities of the English merchants it would have had little 
claim to be called a port town at all. Beyond its walls, 
along the side of the harbour wharfs and further to the south, 
stretched for a mile or more the imposing bagln of the 
English — Wood, Woodhouse, and Ingham — and of the one 
native wine manufacturer, Florio. A baglio at Marsala was 

^ Br. Pari. Papers, 17, p. 6. Castiglia {Sic. e La. Masa, xviii, xix). 
Menghini, 421. Bandi, 79-81. Conv. Tiirr. Tilrr's Da Qua/to, 15. 
Abba Not. 41. Giusta, 5. Riistow, 138. Zeiisi, 132. Brnzzesi. 11, 12. 
Conv. Canzio. Crispi, Diario, 20. Calvino (Guardione, ii. 427). Elta, ii. 
24. Crispi (3), 597. Ca::ipo, 104. 



232 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAXD 

a large spizr of ground, protected fortress-%vi5e by high 
MT-r : i2i': ' f ' : Is, withm which were ranged the sheds for the 
zii:iu;i::Mre md the vaults for the storage of the wine, be- 
^des in some instances a conrtyard in the middle, and a 
well-appointed country house, where the comfort and 
hospitahty of an English home stood entrenched in a foreign 
land. Hie imposing hne of these mercantile fortresses, each 
flying the British flag in a time of danger and disturbance, 
was more prominently in view than the city itself to persons 
approaching Marsala from the sea. 

When the news of Riso's revolt at the Gancia Convent in 
Palermo reached Marsala on April 6, a Liberal demonstra- 
tion took place, the tricolour was carried through the streets 
=iid the Bourbon arms pulled down. But the news of Riso's 
irziplete discomfiture quickly succeeded, and a month of 
iririil expectation er.s'-^a till on Mav 6 a column under 
tie riers :; Ge-er /. It: ;. rr ri :r. : r tDwn, imprisoned 
or in- r ^ ly t .r .riirrs Lzd iis^r-ied the inhabitants, 
iri:--:i:r.r t ~ r ? r :.;ji zolcny. Bui on May 9-10 the govem- 
zie-T ' .:._ r. iTiible foUy, transported Letizia's force from 
Mars ^n : ^ : .: : : 7 ilermo, in spite of the fact that they knew 
G ir. ; G i: : : r. i" r 5 lile i. and expected him to land on exactly 
n^t ZLzz : ; '.di ; : is: :o the north of Mazzara. Indeed, on 
Met 6, GenerG LsjiG vrltl ;ji:Gier force was sent from 
PGern.: :r land into the same district to await Garibaldi, 
It -'z-r '.'zry time that Letizia was being withdrawn thence 
: : r Germo by sea Landi, on May 11, had scarcely marched 
as tar as Alcan: s: that Garibaldi came to Marsala at a 
zi:~r't ~hen there "as no force nearer than the garrison 
:: hrit m TGs ~zs the hrst :: the sehes of fatal mflitary 
mistakes 'z'_ a: a tai I-:'v-emor Cir. h::iG and his suc- 
sessttE 5a::irded iii losing the Gland iz an annament 
ltLG:r: asl: inferior to their own.^ 

The Brnia l:ny in the baglii of Marsala, alarmed at 
dndhig thetasr . r= deprived of their arms by a government 

* De Cssare, fi. 191, 19a, 200, G. . : z 7, Naples MS., Landi. 



THE BRITISH SHIPS 233 

politically hostile, amid a population socially untrustworthy, 
appealed for the protection of their own country. For this 
reason, and not, as was afterwards averred, out of collusion 
with Garibaldi, H.M.S. Argus and Intrepid were detached 
from the squadron at Palermo at nightfall on May 10, and 
arrived at Marsala at ten on the following morning, about 
three hours in advance of the Piemonte and LombardoA 
The Englishmen found no other warships at Marsala, for 
two or three vessels of the Neapolitan squadron had started 
on their cruise towards the south so short a time before that 
they were still visible in the offing at five or six miles 
distance. 2 

The British officers anchored their ships well outside the 
port, the Argits two or three miles out, and the Intrepid 
nearer in shore, but still ' three-quarters of a mile to a mile 
from the lighthouse at the end of the mole.' From these 
exterior positions they did not move during the exciting 
events that followed, and consequently offered not the 
slightest physical impediment to any operations which the 
Neapolitans wished or could have wished to carry out.^ 

So little was Garibaldi or any other thunderbolt expected 
out of the blue of that calm and dreamy May noontide that 
the two commanding officers were on shore, being shown 
over the baglii by their fellow-countrymen, and hearing their 
complaints about the disarmament, when the party was 
called out from the wine stores to watch two strange 
steamers from the north-west running fast for port. Cap- 
tain Marryat, of the Intrepid, noticed that the leading 
steamer, the smaller of the two, had a boat in tow. There 

> Br. Pari. Papers, 17, pp. 5, 6. Winnington-Ingram, 172, 197. The 
A rgus is described as a steam-paddle sloop, six guns, and the Intrepid as a 
gunboat. The English warships at this period were wooden ships of the 
old build with both steam and masts. 

" De Sivo, iii. 187. De Cesare, ii. 192, 203. Girolamo, 9. Br. Pari. 
Papers, 17, p. 2. Daily News, May 22, i860, p. 5, col. 4. 

•* Br. Pari. Papers, 17, pp. 2, 6, 7, Winnington-Ingram, 197. Italian 
maps of the affair incorrectly represent the British ships as nearer inshore. 
But the separate evidence of the two British captains is explicit and 
unimpeachable. 



234 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

appeared to be armed men on board the vessels, and as they 
approached they were seen to hoist the Piedmontese colours, 
the tricolour of Italy, but with the cross of the House of 
Savoy in the middle — not Mazzini's ' neutral banner.' i 

The sailors on board the Argus, who had a close view of 
the Piemonte as she passed under their stern, saw on board 
her, men in red blouses, ' which gave them somewhat the 
appearance of English soldiers.' The sympathetic Britons, 
alike on the ships and on the shore, now clearly perceived 
that it ' was a case of Viva Italia,' and an officer in a red 
blouse with a feather in his cap, standing on the bridge of 
the Piemonte beside the captain, was voted by some of those 
on board the Argus to be Garibaldi himself. The mouth of 
a cannon was noticed projecting from the bulwarks. The 
larger vessel that followed was seen to be ' literally crammed 
with men like herrings in a cask ; some in red, some in dark 
green like riflemen, but by far the greater part in plain 
citizens' attire.' They made straight for the port, the 
Piemonte anchoring safely inside the mole among a number 
of small English merchant vessels, but Bixio's Lonihardo, 
of deeper draught, grounding on the shallows at the mouth 
of the harbour, within a hundred yards of the lighthouse.^ 

It was now about 1.30 or 2 o'clock. The Neapolitan 
vessels had perceived their prey and were coming back in 
the utmost haste from the south. The sloop steamer 
Stromholi, after towing the sailing frigate Partettope some 
little distance, left her to follow, and made all speed for the 
scene of action. ^ With destruction thus drawing near them 
apace, the Thousand began to disembark, making for a 
point near the end of the mole. 

Garibaldi sent Tiirr ashore first with a small body of men 
to occupy Marsala. Their welcome was friendly but timid. 



^ Br. Pari. Papers, 17, p. 6. Daily News, May 22, i860, p. 5, col. 4. 
I have seen the flag of the Piemonte, preserved in the baglio Ingham. 

- Daily News, May 22, i860, p. 5, col. 4 ; cf. Times, May 29, ' A corre- 
spondent writes — '. I. L. N., 467 (May 19). Elia, ii. 25. Br. Pari. 
Papers, 17, p. 6. 

* Castiglia [Sic. e La Masa, xxi). Sampieri, 14. 



THE LANDING BEGUN 235 

for the leading citizens had fled from the town during its 
recent occupation by Letizia's punitive column, and the 
remainder were frightened by the memory of that event and 
by the approach of the Neapolitan war vessels. In the 
centre of the town some junior offlcers of the Argus and 
Intrepid were surprised as they sat eating ices in a cafe by 
the appearance in the doorway of armed men in strange 
uniforms ; shortly afterwards, in obedience to orders sent 
them by their captains, the young men hastened back to 
their ships. The invaders made haste to seize the telegraph 
office, where they found a form filled in with a message 
evidently just dispatched to Trapani, announcing the 
arrival of two Piedmontese steamers with armed men on 
board. From Trapani the news could be wired to Palermo. 
The new-comers at once sent another message : ' My mistake; 
they are two of our own vessels.' Tradition has it that the 
official at Trapani replied ' idiot ! ' {imhecille !) } but in any 
case the authorities at Palermo were not deceived, and while 
the disembarkation was only beginning, had wired to Naples 
to announce Garibaldi's arrival, and to ask that troops 
should at once be dispatched from Naples to Marsala.^ 

Meanwhile the main body of Garibaldini was disembark- 
ing. The ships' boats and the fishing smack which they 
had towed into port would not have sufficed for a rapid 
landing, especially as the Lomhardo had struck outside the 
harbour. But the sailors of Marsala, induced by political 
sympathy, by promises of high pay, and in some cases by 
revolvers held at their heads, brought out swarms of small 
boats to the rescue. ^ The rapidity with which the disem- 
barkation was effected roused the professional admiration 
of many experienced English spectators. ^ 

' Tiirr's Da Quarto, 15, 16. Bruzzesi, 15, 16. Abba Not. 55. Br. 
Pari. Papers, 17, pp. 7, 8. Capuzzi, 18. I. L. N., 467 (May 19). 

2 De Sivo, iii. 193. De Cesare, ii. 224. 

' Girolamo, 10, 11. Tiirr's Da Quarto, 19. CastigUa {Sic. e la Masa, 
XX.). Daily News, May 22, i860, p. 5, col. 4. Campo, 104. 

"• ' Nothing could excel the able way in which the landing was effected.' 
— Letter of English eye-witness in the Times, May 29, i860. See also Times, 
May 25, another such letter : ' The landing was effected in gallant style, 
and with most extraordinary celerity and order,' 



236 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

When at length the Stromboli steamed up within shot, 
the Piemonte had discharged all its living cargo on the mole, 
but the Lomhardo had still three-quarters of its men on 
board, to say nothing of the cannon and ammunition. i A 
fairer opportunity for making an end of the expedition on 
the spot could not have been desired by a zealous and capable 
officer. But Captain Acton, of the Stromboli, though his 
family was British Catholic in origin, had the traditions of 
Neapolitan service ingrained through several generations 
of connection, honourable enough indeed, with the history of 
the House of Bourbon. The responsibility of that hour 
was too much for him. 

' It was in his power,' wrote Captain Marryat, who was 
watching from the shore through his telescope, ' to place his 
steamer (s ?) within 200 or 300 yards of the Sardinian aground 
[the Lomhardo'], and in such a position that every shot fired by 
him would have raked her from stem to stern while the deck was 
crowded with men, and one may feel convinced that all landing 
by boats would have ceased. ... So impressed was I with the 
idea that the Commander of the Neapolitan steamer would open 
fire an hour before he did that I advised the removal of English 
[merchant] vessels out of the port.' 

This proved impossible because of a head wind, so that 
the merchant vessels remained in port to take their 
chance. 

No account by Acton of his own motives has ever been 
given to the world, but we may perhaps deduce from his 
actions that his principal motive for hesitation was the very 
natural though quite unfounded suspicion that the almost 
simultaneous arrival at Marsala of the British war-ships and 
the invading expedition was the result of a dark English 
conspiracy. The Neapolitan Government and all its 
employees were rightly convinced of the hostility of Great 
Britain, but erred in supposing her capable of every kind of 
outrage. Terror of the British war-ships cruising osten- 
tatiously and in large numbers round the island was 
one of the chief causes of Neapolitan miscalculation and 

1 Br. Pari, Papers, 17, p. 6. 



THE NEAPOLITANS OPEN FIRE 237 

panic throughout this year of disaster. Probably Acton 
was no wiser than the government he served, and feared 
that the moment he opened fire he would be blown out of 
the water. His suspicions were the keener when he observed 
among the invaders a number of soldiers in strange red 
uniforms, which he took for British. He therefore sent a 
boat's crew to hail the Intrepid and inquire whether there 
were any English troops ashore. He was told ' No,' but 
that the Commanders of the two EngHsh men-of-war were 
on shore, and a few other naval officers. Even then he did 
not begin to fire, but sent again to the Intrepid to ask how 
he could find Captain Marryat. Meanwhile that officer, 
together with his colleague Captain Winnington-Ingrami 
of the Argus, who had known and admired Garibaldi four- 
teen years ago at Monte Video,i rowed out from the wine 
stores to the Stromboli and interviewed Acton on board his 
own ship. Speaking in fluent English, but appearing 
' excessively nervous and agitated about the affair,' Acton 
told them 

' that he was obliged to fire, to which not the slightest objection 
was made, and nothing more passed than a request from us that 
he would respect the English flag, whenever he saw it flying, which 
he faithfully promised to do. Whilst we were on board, he con- 
tinued his firing, and even offered a kind of apology for the shot 
going so low ; but he said he did not wish to fire into the town, 
only on the armed men marching from the mole to the city gate! 
As we left the steamer,' adds Captain Marryat, 'the frigate 
[Partenope, 50-60 guns] arrived under sail, and fired a useless 
broadside.' 

The steamer Capri also appeared on the scene. 2 

Garibaldi in his memoirs sums up the situation well. 
There was, he writes, no truth in the rumour that the British 
helped the disembarkation ' directly.' But, he adds, the 
presence of their ships ' influenced ' the Neapolitan com- 
mander in delaying the bombardment, and so 

•the noble flag of England once more on this occasion 

* Trevelyan's Gar. Rome, 35, note. Winnington-Ingram, chap. vii. 

* Br. Pari. Papers, 17, pp. 2, 6, 7. Winninston-Ingram, 197, 198. * 



238 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

helped to prevent bloodshed, and I, the Benjamin of these 
lords of the ocean, for the hundredth time received their 
protection.' i 

The bombardment, witnessed by the British captains 
from the deck of the Neapolitan steamer, was as badly 
aimed as it had been tardily begun. Having lost the oppor- 
tunity of raking and sinking the Lombardo when the men 
were still on board, the three Neapolitan vessels, if they 
could have shot straight, had still the chance of inflicting 
terrible damage on the Thousand as they marched in column 
along the whole length of the mole,3 and thence to the city 
gate. ' The patriots stood fire splendidly,' wrote Captain 
Ingram, ' and appeared to be altogether a fine body of men. 
But we only saw one man knocked over.' For the most part 
the missiles fell short in the open sea, but one or two passed 
overhead into the haglio Woodhouse, and nearly killed the 
English manager's wife. Garibaldi on the mole was in high 
good humour, chafhng those who showed any signs of 
nervousness. He himself remained one of the last outside 
the sea-gate of Marsala now called after his name ; as he 
stood beside it with Tiirr and young Giorgio Manin (the son 
of a famous father), a shell burst at their feet, covering the 
whole party with dust. When all were within the city gate, 
there was nothing more to fear. The total loss of the 
invaders had been one dog wounded in the leg and one 
man in the shoulder.^ 

1 Mem. 343. 

2 See illustration opposite. The landing took place at the end of the 
mole, not where the memorial stone has been erected. Now (1909) the 
mole has a high bulwark on its sea side, but then the bulwark was only a 
foot or so high, and no real protection. {Conv. Minco and local informa- 
tion.) The mole was therefore rightly called ' molo scoperto ' by Castiglia. 

^ Besides Br. Pari. Papers, 17, and Winnington- Ingram, see Times, 
May 25 and 29, i860, and Daily News, May 22, for letters of eye-witnesses. 
Castiglia {Sic. e La Masa, xxi.). Tiirr's Div. 25. Girolamo, 14. Men- 
ghini, 24, 422. Calvino {Guardione, ii. 428). Perini, 127. Bandi, 83-86. 
Belloni, 84. Conv. Lipari. Most Italian writers say that no one was hit 
except the dog, but Garibaldi left in the hospital of Marsala two sick men 
and one wounded in the shoulder, see Girolamo, 23, note. This is borne 
out by Winnington-Ingram, 198, 200, and Times, May 25 and 29. 





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THE LANDING EFFECTED 239 

By 4.30 everyone was safe inside the town, except the 
Genoese Carabineers, whom Garibaldi stationed at the har- 
bour to prevent the Neapohtans from landing. Nothing 
had been left on board the vessels. A quarter of an hour's 
excellent work had sufficed to land the five old cannon. 
The ammunition, piled on the mole, was all brought up to 
the town in carts and on mules, under a hot but ill-directed 
fire. Last of all, the sea-cocks of the two steamers were 
opened by Garibaldi's orders, in order to flood the ships and 
prevent them from being carried off by the enemy. The 
Lomhardo was thus rendered immovable, but the Piemonte 
was that evening salvaged and taken in tow by the Neapoli- 
tans. They clambered on her deck with cries of exultation 
and victory, vastly to the amusement of the Garibaldian 
and British onlookers, who had witnessed a previous 
attempt on their part to board her before she was quite 
empty ; on that occasion the boat's crew had thought better 
of it and ignominiously turned back half-way. 1 

Safe within the walls of Marsala, Garibaldi summoned 
the Decurionato, as the municipal body was called. Its 
members, who showed considerable courage, readily obeyed 
his summons, and at the suggestion of Crispi, who from the 
moment of landing in his native island acted as the General's 
political secretary, they drew up and signed a document 
whereby they declared that the Bourbons had ceased to 
reign in Sicily, and called on Garibaldi to assume the 
Dictatorship in the name of Victor Emmanuel. * I accepted 
the Dictatorship,' he writes, ' because I have always believed 
the way of safety lay there in times of crisis.' 2 

1 Elia, il. 25, 26. Bixio, i68. Castiglia {Sic. e La Masa, xxU.). 
Turr's Da Quarto, 19. Calvino {Guardione, ii, 428). Menghini, 29, 422. 
Sampieri, 14. Bandi, 95-100. Perini, 128, 129. Bruzzesi, 16, 24, 29. 
Bruzzesi {dopo 25 anni), 30. Daily News, May 22, p. 5, col. 4. Giusia, 6. 
Br. Pari. Papers, 17, pp. 6, 7. 

* The document with the signatures is printed in full in Girolamo, 19. 
Girolamo, 15-20. Crispi, Diario, 20, 21, note. Mem. 344. La Masa 
(Sic.) II. Bruzzesi, 14. All these authorities show that the Dictatorship 
was offered and assumed first at Marsala, not, as is often stated, at Salemi 



240 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

A simpler demand made by Sirtori, the Chief of Staff, 
was less easily met. Before the expedition left Quarto the 
book-shops of Genoa had been ransacked in vain for a good 
map of Sicily — so little in those days was known of the island 
by North Italians. But it now appeared that Marsala was 
equally unable to supply the want, although the Decurionato 
produced a map of the lands of their commune, of which 
Sirtori at once set his officers to make three copies. The 
Marsalese, moreover, gave verbal descriptions of the geo- 
graphical and physical position of Salemi, the nearest of the 
mountain towns. i Relying perforce on such slight informa- 
tion, Garibaldi made his plan of campaign that night. He 
decided to march with all speed to Salemi, as the nearest 
defensible position, where he could defy a Bourbon attack 
from any direction, rest the Thousand, and gather round 
his flag the squadre of the upland districts, who could be 
trusted to show more martial zeal than the men of the coast 
towns. But he had no thought of waging for long a defen- 
sive or guerilla war in the hills. From Salemi it was his 
intention to march straight on Palermo. ^ 

Next after the intoxicating joy of having landed safely 
with all their warlike stores, the feeling that prevailed among 
the Thousand that night was disappointment at their first 
contact with the Sicilians. In the completeness of their 
ignorance, the Northerners had expected to find in the 
children of the ' land of the Vespers ' equal and like-minded 
comrades-in-arms. They found instead a race, whose 
language they could with difficulty understand, who were 
indeed politically friendly and not inhospitable (except 
for their habit of secluding the women of their families 
like Turks), but who seemed for the most part unwilling to 
fight, and were all quite unused to regular warfare. Gari- 
baldi alone was contented and confident. ' Patience ! 
Patience ! ' he said next day to those who complained of 
the Sicilians, ' you will find that all will come right.' Indeed 
if he had felt the same irritation with his new allies as was 

' Bruzzesi, 35. Girolamo, 15, 16. 
^ Bandi, 108. Baiatleri, 390, 391. 



THE CHURCH AND THE INVADERS 241 

felt by Bixio and most of the Thousand, he would not have 
won the confidence and adoration of the Sicilians in that 
extraordinary degree which proved one of the chief causes 
of his success. The quarrel of North and South was felt in 
the patriotic camp, to a greater or less extent, from the 
moment of the landing at Marsala, but it was not felt by 
Garibaldi, who remained the very personification of the idea 
of national unity, and succeeded, where a cleverer politician 
would have failed, in drawing North and South along together 
until the game was won.i 

His affectionate attitude towards the Sicilians was due 
to a mixture of shrewdness and simphcity, difficult to analyse, 
and highly characteristic of the man. The same may be 
said of his friendly attitude towards the Church in Sicily, 
resented in Hke manner by many of his Northern followers, 
and in like manner essential to the success of his enterprise. 
Even the first night in Marsala proved that in this strange 
island not only the priesthood but the great majority of the 
rehgious bodies were on the side of the revolution, though 
they pleaded the poverty of their convents as an excuse 
for supplying so few of their champions' wants. Garibaldi, 
would allow no contributions to be forced from anyone 
except the reactionary and unpopular Jesuits, whom he 
soon afterwards expelled from Sicily. On this first night, 
the Jesuits of Marsala were obHged to disgorge their blankets, 
by throwing them unwillingly and gradually out of the 
window to the officer in the street below. But Sirtori, the 
serious and ascetic ex-priest, was sent round Marsala that 
night by Garibaldi to restrain the mangiapreti ^ among the 
Thousand from offering personal insult even to the Jesuits. 
Another member of his staff, devotedly attached to his person, 
Gusmaroh, an ex-priest of a different and coarser type, could 
not understand the point of a revolution in which the Church 



1 Bandi, 114-116. Bologna MS., Bixio. This proposition is the result 
in my mind of so much evidence, printed and oral, and the key to so many 
recorded incidents, that it would require a whole essa y to lay out the proofs 
of it in full. 

'^ ' Priest-eaters.' 



242 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

was spared. But the fear of the General lay heavy upon the 
wildest of his followers, and he continued to the end to 
receive the active support of priests, monks. Bishops, and 
friars ' True they are enemies to modern ideas of progress,' 
he said to one of his followers next month, ' but above all 
they are enemies to the Bourbons.' i 

At dawn next morning, May 12, the httle army started 
for Salemi.2 Garibaldi, Bixio, and a few other officers were 
mounted on horses procured in Marsala, but some of the 
staff officers and some of the cavalry scouts had still to 
trudge on foot.^ It was a joyful scene outside the landward 
gate. The rising sun shone on Mount Eryx on the northern 
horizon, and on the sea where the baffled Neapolitan steamers 
were towing off the Piemonte, and on the crowd of Marsalese 
enthusiasts who had come to wish the Thousand God-speed. 
Out of a small body of the townspeople who actually enlisted, 
some ran off that same day with the firearms that had been 
lent them, while others remained to fight and bleed at 
Calatafimi.4 The British Consul, Mr. Cossins, rode some 
little distance at Garibaldi's side, and took charge of a bag 
of private letters to wives and families of the invaders, which 
he undertook to have delivered in the North. ^ 

All in the highest spirits, the Thousand moved off through 
the flat desert, or sciara, as it has been called since the days 
of the Arabs, that stretches for some miles behind Marsala. 
After that they entered on the green undulating sea of corn 
and bean-fields which, in alternation with uncultivated 
prairie, composes the interior of Sicily. Houses were 
scanty, for cultivators and shepherds dwelt in the distant 
and crowded hill-towns, and the Garibaldini with South 

1 Bandi, 103-107, 127-133. Turr's Div. 28. De Cesave, i. 300, 301 ; 
ii. 316, 317, Menghini, 75. De Sivo, iii. 252-254. Elia, ii. 29. Mario 
Mac. 247. 

2 Henceforward use Map III., Western Sicily, at end of book. 
^ Cf. Bandi, 109, 115, 116, to Abba Not. 46, 295. 

■♦ Cf. Bandi, iii to Girolamo, 23, 24. 

■' Menghini, 24. Bruzzesi, dopo 25 anni, 30. Bandi, no. Whitaher, 
275. Abba Not. 46-48. 



THE FIRST BIVOUAC 243 

American memories compared the scenery to that of the 
pampas. At rare intervals the large farm buildings of some 
ex-feudo 1 afforded water from a well. The heat and thirst 
that day were terrible, and only Bixio, standing at the 
fountains revolver in hand, prevented the men from en- 
dangering their health, as it was supposed, by drinking too 
deep. At the farms of Chitarra and Butagana they made 
their mid-day halt and obtained wine and water. After that 
point the high road ended abruptly, becoming a mere track, 
very difficult for the carts that carried the yet unmounted 
cannon, which were brought along by the efforts of the sailors 
turned artillerists. Garibaldi marched a great part of the 
day on foot, talking cheerfully with the rank and file. At 
evening the Thousand, fairly exhausted with the heat 
reached the ex-feudo and medieval tower of Rampagallo, 
that stands in a solitary place amid low hills, a Httle aside 
from the rough path they were following. Garibaldi slept 
under a tent, and his army around him in the open. There 
was no wood with which to make camp fires, and in the 
middle of the night it came on to rain. The miseries of war 
had begun. 3 

That evening at Rampagallo they were joined by the first 
of the genuine squadre — finely built farmers, horsed and carry- 
ing their guns across the saddle-bow. Some were led by 
Baron S. Anna, the territorial magnate of Alcamo, others by 
Don Alberto Mistretta of Salemi and Rampagallo. Garibaldi 
soon won their hearts, and sent on La Masa the same evening 
to Salemi to prepare the inhabitants for his entry next day. 
La Masa, in his real element as a street orator and popular 
leader in Sicily, whence he had been excluded for eleven 
years, was actively assisted by the priests of Salemi in 
rousing the popular ardour of the place. When next day 
(May 13) the Thousand wound up the mountain track ^ 

' See p. 145 and note 3, above, on the ' ex-feudi.' 

' Girolamo, 24, 25, note. Abba's Bixio, 88, 90. Capuzzi, 20-24. 
Crispi, Diario, 20. Menghini, 422. Abba Not. 48, ^g. Bandi, 116-124. 

3 There is a road to-day, but in 1S60 the artillery had to go miles round 
to the south in order to get up the hill into Salemi at all. Bruzzesi, dopo 
23 anni, 32. Oliveri, 25. 



244 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

between sparse olive groves towards the high piazza outside 
the castle and gate of the old city, the bells of the campanili 
rang out welcome, and the population came down the hill 
with music to greet their deliverers, shouting for Italy and 
Victor Emmanuel with a heartiness that removed much 
of the impression of the timid reception at Marsala.i 

Safe on high-placed Salemi, whence the sea and the low 
southern coast are viewed in panorama, Garibaldi had again 
won the race against his tardy foemen. They should have 
occupied the town before him, and so kept him down in the 
lowlands. He had now opened up his connexion with the 
centre of the island, roused the squadre of the Sicilian up- 
lands, and placed himself upon the road to Palermo. But 
in order to open that road before him he had still a battle 
to fight with General Landi, who on the same morning, 
May 13, had marched from Alcamo to Calatafimi.^ 

On the evening of that day the news of the landing at 
Marsala reached official circles at Turin. An hour before 
midnight on May 13 a stout gentleman in spectacles passed 
down the Via Carlo Alberto to his own house, whistling to 
himself in meditative glee and rubbing his hands together. 
He turned in to his door and vanished, but not before a 
passer-by had recognised Count Cavour.s 



1 Captizzi, 25. La Masa (Sic), xxv, xxvi, 14-16. Oliveri, 14-19, 
Bandi, 125, 126. Menghini, 423. 

2 Naples MS., Landi. Baratieri, 390, 391. 

^ Chiala, iv. p. clxxviii. (Cesana's first-hand evidence). 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE BATTLE OF CALATAFIMI 

' In the dark perils of war, in the high places of the field, hope shone 
In him like a pillar of fire, when it had gone out in all the others.' — 
Carlyle's Cromwell, iii. 30. 

The news of the landing at Marsala passed like the wind 
over the uplands of Western Sicily, fanning the embers of 
the insurrection into sudden flame. On the mountain ridges 
of Inserra that look down over Palermo, Rosolino Pilo 
roused his faithful remnant to fresh activity with the news 
that his rash promise of Garibaldi's coming was at length 
fulfilled. 1 Far away in the interior of the island, near 
Roccamena, an Albanian band from Plana dei Greci,^ true 
to the old Balkan instincts, was wandering about, vainly 
exhorting the more timid Sicihan rustics to join them, and 
taking their firearms when they refused. This forlorn 
hope learnt the great tidings on May 12 from a solitary 
horseman. Instantly marching on Corleone, they were 
welcomed by the inhabitants, who had themselves gone mad 
over the news, and were forming squadre for the field. On 
the 13th and 14th, at Salami, Garibaldi himself was joined 
by about 1000 men, some from Alcamo, but most from 
Monte S. Giuliano, the village perched on Mount Eryx, out of 
reach of the garrison of Trapani. 

The members of the squadre represented the hardiest type 
of rustic ; some wore their untanned sheep-skins, but the 
more well-to-do farmers' sons came mounted, and in velvet- 
eens, which with the low top-boots of the Sicilian countryman 

* See pp. 159, 160, above. - See p. 158, abov*. 

245 



246 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

made a picturesque costume. Most were armed with flint- 
locks or blunderbusses. The age of the greater number 
of them, according to a native writer who saw the whole 
movement, was scarcely twenty, and they had therefore 
been nicknamed the picciotti, or ' little fellows.' They 
knew no drill and acknowledged no discipline, but came 
on like a mob behind their ex-feudal chiefs, just so far as 
they felt inclined to follow. But until the battle of Calata- 
fimi showed their unfitness for warfare in the open field, 
great things were expected of them alike by friend and 
foe, and the rising of the Sicilian peasants had important 
military consequences in the moral effect produced on the 
Neapolitans, more particularly on their too impressionable 
commanders. 1 

Before Garibaldi sailed from Quarto, there were already 
24,864 regular troops in Sicily,^ of whom nearly four-fifths 
guarded Palermo and its neighbourhood. Yet the aged 
Governor Castelcicala, who had fought in the English army 
at Waterloo, felt no security even within Palermo itself, after 
he knew that Garibaldi was in the island. ^ On receiving the 
news of his landing on May 11, he had wired the same day 
to Naples for more troops to be sent to Marsala by sea, 
in order to co-operate with General Landi in placing the 
invaders between two fires, as near as possible to the point 
of their disembarkation. The plan was promptly accepted 
by King Francis and his ministers, and on May 11-12 a 
force under General Bonanno, three or four battalions 
strong, left Neapolitan waters for Marsala, where they were 
expected to land within twenty-four hours. But on May 14 
they had not yet rounded Cape S. Vito, and as Garibaldi had 
long before escaped into the hills of Salemi, it was thought 
useless to send them further in pursuit of him. They were 

1 Paolucci, Pilo, 267, 268. Plana dei Greet, 33-37. Franciosi, 15, 16. 
Conv. Paternostro. Corleo, 15, 16. Fazio, 25, 26, 44. Capuzzi, 28, 29. 
Baratieri [N. A.), 394, 395- ^^^^ ^ot. 50, 51, 54, 55. V. M. 20. 

- De Sivo, iii. 12. Throughout this book the numbers of the Neapoli- 
tans are taken from NeapoUtan official sources only. 

3 De Cesare, i. 64. Nisco, Fr. II, 32. Palermo MS. Polizia, 1238, his 
letters of May 13 and 15, 



LANDI REACHES CALATAFIMI 247 

landed instead at Palermo to join the immense force already 
protecting the capital. 1 

Meanwhile General Landi, himself no less belated than 
Bonanno, with whom he was to have co-operated in 
catching the invaders near Marsala, was slowly and half- 
heartedly moving away from his base at Palermo. He was 
seventy years of age, and followed his troops in a carriage. 
In six days they had marched thirty miles, as far as Alcamo, 
where, on May 12, the aspect of their artillery, never seen 
before in the upland towns, struck a damp into the hearts of 
the patriots, who wondered whether even Garibaldi could 
fight against such terrible machines. 2 That night they 
marched to Calatafimi, a squalid town built on the slopes of 
a hill, of which the conical summit was crowned by the ruins 
of a Saracen castle. In every epoch Calatafimi had been a 
position of strategic importance, because it commanded the 
junction of the high-roads from Trapani and Salemi, which 
ran on through Alcamo to Palermo. In i860 they were the 
only roads in that part of the island that could bear wheeled 
traffic, so that if Garibaldi wished to advance direct on the 
capital with his famous cannon, he must pass that way. 

Landi, when he reached Calatafimi on the morning of 
the 13th, was in command of only one battalion besides 
cavalry and artillery, but he was there strengthened by two 
more battalions from Trapani, which had been sent thither 
by sea from Palermo in order to join him. The newcomers, 
drawn from the loth line and from the fine regiment of the 
8th Cacciatori, under Major Sforza, raised Landi's force to 
3000 regular infantry, with a full complement of cavalry and 
guns. 3 He was aware that Garibaldi lay at Salemi, eight 

' Bonanno is said by De Sivo, iii. 193, 194, and De Cesare, ii. 222-226, to 
have had four battalions. A battalion in the Neapolitan army contained 
seven companies {De Sivo, iii. 121), or sometimes only six {Naples MS. 
Landi) ; a company contained nominally 160 men, but often in practice 
rather fewer {De Sivo, iii. 121, 122) ; so that a battalion was about 1000 
men. But Cronaca, 84, speaks not of twenty-four but onl}' of sixteen 
companies under Bonanno. 

^ Fazio, 41. 

^ In Naples MS. Landi, he himself allows that his three battalions 



248 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

miles to the south, but he was ignorant of his numbers, and 
unable to obtain information owing to the hostility of the 
population. The disturbed state of the countryside daunted 
him to an unnecessary degree. Because the banditti were 
out on the road behind him, and had broken the electric 
telegraph and the semaphores commumcatnig with the 
capital, he was already anxious about his base and his 
retreat on Palermo. He remained inactive in Calatafimi 
until the 15th, sending off nervous reports to Castelcicala, 
who was scarcely less alarmed than he at the occupation of 
the roads and telegraphs by the rebel bands. 1 

On the morning of the 15th he heard that the enemy was 
moving out of Salemi and advancing towards him along the 
high-road by way of Vita. The choice of three rational 
courses lay before him. Either he could assume the 
offensive and meet them half-way ; or he could concentrate 
his battalions under his own eye for the defence of Calata- 
fimi ; or he could still retreat, inglorious but undefeated, on 
the capital — and indeed he declares that he received orders 
to do so that very morning from Castelcicala.^ But not hav- 
ing the sense to adopt any one of these plans, he remained in 
the hill town under the shadow of the old Saracen castle, 
while sending out portions of his force in different directions 
' to impose morally on the enemy,' as he himself expressed 
it, by 'marching about through the countryside.' With this 
object, the battalion of the 8th Cacciatori under Major 
Sforza occupied the high hill known as the Pianto del 
Romani whereon the battle monument stands to-day ; it 
happened to be a good defensive position, though it had not 
been selected for that reason.^ 

contained twenty companies. De Sivo, iii. 197, also estimates them at 
3000 men. 

1 Naples MS. Landi. De Cesare, ii. 200-202. Palermo MS. Polizia, 
1238, Castelcicala's letters of May 13, 15. 

- Appendix M, below, ' Calatafimi,' ii. 

■^ Naples MS. Landi, borne out by the Neapolitan Major, in his 
letter printed in Sampieri, 28. Landi wronglj'- gives the name of the 
neighbouring Monte Barbaro to the Pianto dei Romani, but his meaning 
Is quite clear. I have kept in my narrative the romantic name of Pianto 



GARIBALDI IN SALEMI 249 

From the afternoon of the 13th till the morning of the 
decisive 15th of May, Garibaldi had remained in Salemi, 
There he rested his men, who were made welcome in the 
monasteries and private houses ; he had gun carriages 
hastily manufactured for his artillery ; he procured pikes or 
muskets for those of the squadre who had come in unarmed ; 
and he caused himself to be a second time proclaimed 
Dictator of Sicily in the name of Victor Emmanuel, with 
more pomp and pubhcity than had attended the hasty and 
unnoticed proclamation by the Municipahty of Marsala. 
The ceremony of assuming the Dictatorship at the invitation 
of the Decurionato of Salemi was conducted in the buildings 
of the old municipio, and Garibaldi then showed himself at 
the balcony above the stone loggia, to the enthusiastic 
populace in the little square below. The men of Salem 
completely lost their hearts to the wonderful stranger. But 
they were also prudently anxious to ascertain that the great 
King Vittorio was really supporting him, and shrewdly 
questioned him as to why he wore a red shirt instead of the 
royal uniform.^ 

His first act after assuming the Dictatorship was to 
decree a conscription for all Sicily, which remained a 
dead letter. But the volunteer movement of squadre was 
spreading, enhanced by reports set about by Sicilians of 
the Thousand deliberately exaggerating the number of the 
invaders, and by the oratory of La Masa, and of Father 
Pantaleo, a friar of the neighbourhood who attached him- 
self to the person of the Dictator at Salemi. Pantaleo was 
a simple and whole-hearted enthusiast, who proved utterly 
fearless in battle, and in spite of many subsequent 

dei Romani — ' the wailing of the Romans ' — because Garibaldi and his 
men were struck with the name when they had won the battle, and believed 
the legend of a Roman defeat there. But actually the name is a corrupt 
Italian version of the Sicilian chianti di Rumani — ' the young vineyards of 
the Romano family.' CiatnpoU, 919. Sampieri, 31-33. Pistraganzili, 
ii. 60. Abba, 129. 

' Leggi, No. I. Oliveri, 29-43. Corleo, 8-14. Bandi, 139. Sampieri, 
2 \. Corleo is not to be trusted on all points, e.g., about the muskets, p. 12, 
he is wronsr. 



250 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

opportunities to obtain wealth and position, lived and died 
true to his Franciscan vow of poverty. From Salemi on- 
wards the General made him welcome to his board. ' Here,' 
he said, ' is our new Ugo Bassi,' and related again how his 
own life had been saved in '49 by the good priest Don 
Verita. He rebuked Gusmaroli and the more ill-conditioned 
members of his staff, who frowned to see a Churchman at 
their table, and like bad boys showed the new-comer gross 
incivility when their master's back was turned. ^ 

On the 14th the General, accompanied by Tiirr, his chief 
aide-de-camp, rode out and surveyed the ground in the 
direction of Calatafimi, whither scouting parties and spies 
were sent to watch the Neapolitans. Finding that Landi 
would not advance against Salemi, Garibaldi had to choose 
whether on the 15th he should himself attack the enemy, and 
cut open the direct road to the capital, or whether he should 
take the tracks leading eastward through S. Ninfa and 
Corleone, whence he could either move into the interior to 
play a waiting game, or approach Palermo by a circuitous 
route through the mountains. Sirtori had at length found 
for him at the municipio a large map of Sicily, which he 
studied intently on the evening of the 14th. It is probable 
that he had from the first decided on the bolder course of 
giving battle at once in order to win the prestige of victory, 
the only magic by which he could possibly be saved. But 
he always kept his own counsel on vital military issues, and 
at nightfall on the 14th the inhabitants of Salemi still feared 
that he would march off to the east and leave them to 
Landi's vengeance. Even the General's aides-de-camp asked 
themselves as they turned to sleep, ' Where are we going 
to-morrow ? ' 2 

Shortly before three o'clock on May 15 Garibaldi awoke 
and called to the aides-de-camp in the adjoining room. 

^ Tiirr's Div. 28. Bandi, 127-133. L'Ora, May 26-27, ^Qoi- Leggi, 
p. 4, No. 2. Corleo, 9. Campo, 106, 107, Franciosi, 16. 

' Bandi, 140, 141. Corleo, 11, 15. Baratieri, 392, 395, 396. Tiirr's 
Div. 29. Calvino {Guardione,n.^3i-.\34). Oliveri,^!-^?,- Mengkini, 423 



THE REVEILLE 251 

Bandi went in to take his orders. ' Look out of the window,' 
he said ; ' is it raining ? ' 'It has been,' said Bandi, ' but 
now it is beautiful {un gran hel sereno).' ' A good omen ! ' 
said the General, and rose from bed. 

When the young officers had made his cup of coffee, with 
which he always fortified himself for the day, four of them 
were dispatched on various errands, to waken Sirtori and 
Tiirr, and bid them rouse the army and order the march. 
Bandi alone remained with his chief. Garibaldi, who had 
been walking up and down the room, suddenly broke into 
song. The battered warrior of fifty-three, about to attack 
an enemy of vastly superior numbers in a contest in which 
defeat meant death, sang like a lover going to meet his 
mistress, because he was about to have his heart's desire. 
' When the affairs of the fatherland go well,' he explained to 
Bandi, ' one must needs be happy.' 

Next moment the bugle sounded the reveille through the 
sleeping town, with musical variations that held Garibaldi 
listening spell-bound. ' I like that reveille ! ' he said to 
Bandi. * It fills me with a kind of melancholy or gladness, 
I don't know which. I remember I have heard it before, 
the morning of the day we conquered at Como. Run and 
fetch the bugler here.' The bugler, the only one in the 
Thousand, was soon in his presence, and said that he had 
learnt it in last year's campaign of the Alps, and that it was 
indeed the reveille of Como. ' Good,' said Garibaldi. ' Al- 
ways sound that one. Do you understand ? Do not 
forget.' 1 

In an hour's time the little army had assembled at the 
top of the town, on the broad platform in the hill-side which 
forms a natural parade ground outside the gate, in full view 
of the southern sea-board on which they were now to turn 
their backs for good. It was a spirited scene. Besides the 
armed squadre, the whole population of Salemi had come to 
cheer them on their way. All now knew that they were 

* Bandi, 141-144. 



252 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

going to battle, and raising the song sung by ' the volunteers 
of the Lombard Manara ' at the siege of Rome,i the Thousand 
began to wind down the northern road into the bottom of 
the deep valley up which they had to pass in order to reach 
Vita. This valley, like many others that cleave the treeless 
Sicilian mountains, is itself filled with stone pines and 
cypresses, fruit-trees and leafy hedgerows, mingled with 
oriental aloe and cactus, and is watered by a clear running 
stream beside its line of poplars. In the bloom of the early 
Sicilian summer, the vale, fresh from the last night's rain, 
and sung over by the nightingale at dawn, lay ready to 
exhale its odours to the rising sun. Nature seemed in tune 
with the hearts of Garibaldi and his men. As the high-road 
began to mount the head of the valley towards Vita, the 
scene changed and became once more mountainous and 
treeless, though the corn on the open hill-sides made their 
slopes show green in May.^ 

Rounding a hill the Thousand came suddenly into the 
bare and characterless streets of Vita, a village perched on 
the plateau or watershed dividing the streams that flow 
south towards Salemi from the streams which flow north 
towards Calatafimi. The column halted in Vita, and the 
men bought and stowed in their pockets, oranges, lemons 
and other food which served them well that hot afternoon. 
Garibaldi meanwhile rode on to explore the heights to the 
north-east.3 

Later in the morning the march was resumed. Pro- 
ceeding along the road for nearly a mile beyond Vita, they 
reached the northern edge of the watershed, where the road 
dips down into another valley. At this point, leaving the 
artillery on the high-road, they turned off to the right up a 
rough foot-track that leads to the top of the north face of 
the Pietralunga, a high hill on the summit of which they 



1 Capuzz-i, 28. Presumably he means Mameli's hymn. See Trevelyan's 
Gar. Rome, 186, and note. 

- Oliveri, 44, correctly describes the change of scenery. 

•* Calvino (Guardione. ii. 434). From this point use the inset map of 
the battle of Calatafimi in Map III., end of book. 



THE BATTLE RANGED 253 

found Garibaldi and his staff already seated. They were 
watching various bodies of Neapolitan troops ' marching 
about through the country-side ' between themselves and 
Calatafimi, particularly the 8th Cacciatori under Major 
Sforza, who happened at that moment to be on the top of the 
Pianto dei Romani, the high hill opposite to the Pietralunga, 
from which it was divided by a short but deep valley. 1 

Landi's troops, sent out by him that morning from 
Calatafimi to ' impose morally upon the enomy,' had suc- 
ceeded admirably in imposing on the squadre. The Sicilians 
had withdrawn on to the hill-tops, some to the east of 
Pietralunga and others to the west of the high-road, and 
disposed themselves to watch the battle, like spectators in 
a Greek theatre. Only some 200 of the squadre followed 
S. Anna of Alcamo into the thick of the fight, in support of 
Garibaldi's right wing. The remainder, perhaps 800 all told, 
fired off guns in the air and shouted on the hill-tops in the 
middle distance. As Enrico Cairoli wrote to his mother : 
' The Sicilian bands are not accustomed to our methods of 
fighting. They are brave behind defences, but have not the 
sang-froid to charge with the bayonet.' " 

Sforza and his battalion of 8th Cacciatori were justly 
counted among the picked troops of the Neapolitan army. 
They were no cowards, and seeing before them on the 
Pietralunga, instead of the Piedmontese uniforms they had 
feared to see, a number of men in plain clothes, not dis- 
tinguishable at a distance from the squadre, and others in 
red shirts which they took to be the red uniform of convicts 
broken loose from the galleys,^ Sforza and his men took heart 
of grace, and fought that day without any of the foreboding 
of defeat felt on many subsequent occasions by their comrades 
engaged against Garibaldi. Sforza had no orders to engage, 
but only to * march about the country-side ' ; being, how- 
ever, an offtcer of a very different spirit from his dotard 

^ For these movements of the Bourbon troops see p. 248, above. 
" Cairoli, 331. Floriita, 70. Fazio, 43. Capuzzi, 34. EHa, ii. 33. 
Bruzzesi, dopo 25 anni, 37. Riistow, 159. 

•' Sampieri, 29, letter of Neapolitan sergeant present in battle. 



254 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

chief, who still lingered in Calatafimi, he determined on 
his own responsibility to sweep this riff-raff back to Salemi.i 

It was a little past noon, and the heat of the day was 
terrible. Garibaldi was still seated among some rocks of 
transparent talc which glitter on the summit of the Pietra- 
lunga, and near him waved the Italian banner. Close 
beneath him on the broad hill-side his homely Thousand 
were ranged in order of battle in their companies, and the 
skirmishing line of the Genoese Carabineers was half way 
down to the valley. On the steeper hill-side of the Pianto 
dei Romani opposite, he saw the well-arrayed Neapolitans 
in their bright uniforms. Behind them, as a background to 
the battle, the mountains above Alcamo, Segesta and 
Castellamare by the northern sea reared their bare outlines 
on the horizon. No shot had yet been fired, and the two 
armies watched each other across the valley. When, at 
length, Sforza's trumpets sounded the advance. Garibaldi 
bade his bugler blow the reveille of Como. The unexpected 
music rang through the noonday stillness like a summons to 
the soul of Italy. 

The Neapolitans began to descend into the bottom of the 
valley to the banks of a small stream, the upper course of 
which lies through broken and rocky ground, the lower part 
through a pleasant grove of poplars. They fired as they 
struggled across the stream and began to ascend the lower 
slopes of the Pietralunga. The skirmishing line of the 
Genoese Carabineers at length opened fire with their rifles 
and laid several of the enemy low. Then, by a spontaneous 
impulse, before the moment intended by Garibaldi, the 
leading companies of the Thousand leapt to their feet and 
dashed down the smooth but rapid slopes of the Pietralunga. 
At the sight of the avalanche above them, the skirmishers 
of the 8th Cacciatori halted, wavered and fled back across 
the valley. But they rallied round their supports on the 
lower slopes of the Pianto dei Romani, and prepared to 
defend the hill, terrace by terrace and yard by yard. The 
Garibaldini, in their turn crossing the stream, began to 

1 Naples MS. Landi. 



THE BATTLE OF CALATAFIMI 255 

charge up the heights in the face of a determined enemy. 
Throughout the heat of the early afternoon, for two hours or 
more, the battle raged, like a heath fire painfully ascending 
a hill under a gusty and wavering wind. 

It may be well to analyse the military conditions of the 
storming of the Pianto dei Romani before narrating the 
dramatic incidents which finally decided its issue. Probably 
the defenders outnumbered the assailants of the hill in the pro- 
portion of five to three. With those of S. Anna's squadre who 
took part in the battle, the Garibaldini were about 1200 men. 
Before the end of the fight some 2000 Neapolitans were 
actively engaged in defending the hill, for although Landi 
himself remained in Calatafimi, he sent out supports to 
Sforza the moment the firing began, till fourteen out of his 
twenty companies were actually taking part in the battle. 
His fears of the squadre in the neighbourhood, and his 
nervousness about his line of retreat, induced him to keep 
the other six companies as a reserve in Calatafimi town.i 

Besides their superiority in numbers, the defenders had a 
yet more marked superiority in weapons. Every Neapolitan 
had an excellent rifle. The smooth-bore muskets of the 
Thousand were sighted for three hundred yards, they fre- 
quently missed fire altogether, and there was such a scarcity 
of ammunition that some had only ten rounds. Conse- 
quently, except by the Genoese Carabineers, picked marks- 
men armed with rifles, who kept up a telling fire in front of the 
battle from beginning to end, there was very little shooting 
done by the assailants, who were ordered by Garibaldi to 
reserve their fire and go in with the cold steel. Their slender 
stock of ammunition was not exhausted at the end of the 
day. The weapon was the bayonet, the sight of which 
coming up from below at a few yards distance generally 
induced the Neapolitan riflemen to seek ground higher up 
the hill.3 

1 Naples MS. Landi, and see Appendix M, below, ' Calatafimi,' i. 

2 Baratieri, 403, 404. Floritta, 70, 72. Abba, 120. Mem. 347. Conv. 
Eng. Conv. Camio. Mazzini, xi. pp. Ix.wiii, note (Nuvolari), and Ixxxi- 
Ixxxii, and note. 



256 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

Two Neapolitan cannon were planted on the east end 
of the Pianto dei Romani, apparently on the hill-side 
below the summit, and did considerable execution. The 
antique artillery of the Thousand, under the able command 
of the Sicilian exile, Giordano Orsini, was left on the high- 
road at the top of the Vita plateau, to defend itself behind a 
hastily constructed barricade against the enemy's cavalry. 
Only after the latter had withdrawn could Orsini advance 
down the road, and, elevating his aim, fire a few shots with 
a high trajectory on to the top of the Pianto dei Romani, 
where they produced some moral effect at the last critical 
moment.i 

Both sides were well suited to their respective tasks ; the 
well-drilled Neapolitans to stand in close order and fire 
rifle volleys down the glacis of the hill-side ; and the 
Thousand, with the individual initiative and educated 
intelligence of the best kind of volunteer, to fight in open 
order, rushing uphill singly or in groups from one tiny bit of 
cover to the next.- The circumstance that rendered victory 
just possible for the attacking party was that, although the 
slope of the Pianto dei Romani was fatally steep, level and 
open, with nothing on the greater part of its smooth surface 
but corn, vines, beans and flax, the peasantry had made some 
terraces, at considerable distances one from another, and 
in lines neither definite nor continuous, cutting them out of 
the soil and rock, or else building them up with rough-hewn 
stones. Each terrace, though only two or three feet high, 
afforded a kind of shelter behind which the Garibaldini 
could crouch and suck lemons and recover breath, while 
they beckoned to comrades below to come up and form a 
party for the next rush across the open. Along the terrace 
walls grew stray olive and fig trees, bushes of aloe and 

1 Riistow, i6o. Orsini {Cenno), 13. Olivevt, 51, 52. Baratieri, 406. 
Tiivr's Div. 33. Menghini, 48, 49. 

2 The principle of group rushes, subsequently used by the Prussian 
armies on a greater scale, is sometimes said to have been invented by 
Garibaldi, whose method it certainly was. But in fact it invents itself 
whenever a force of intelligent and severally reliable men has to fight 
under certain conditions. See Baratieri, 400, 403, and Nicolosi. 




M 



mBi 


pi' 




H 


^* 




£^ 


^1 '^ 


iki^nM^., 



A 'terrace' of the PIANTO DEI ROMANI. 
With olive and cactus iffco d India). 




A 'terrace' of the PIANTO DEI ROMANI. 
With aloes. 



THE BATTLE OF CALATAFIMI 257 

cactus, hedges of grey wormwood, with orange vetch and 
multitudinous flowers and weeds adorning these break- 
waters of the battle. 

Sometimes a terrace was held successfully by the Neapoli- 
tans, and the assailants thrust down again. Once a Gari- 
baldian banner was captured in hand to hand conflict. 
A Neapolitan sergeant of gigantic size, who soon afterwards 
deserted and fought in the ItaUan ranks at Milazzo, headed 
a charge downhill, killed Schiaffino of Camogli, the bearded 
sea-captain who carried the banner, wounded Menotti 
Garibaldi in the hand, and tearing the flag from its staff 
carried it ofl in triumph.^ If the Neapolitans had made 
more frequent charges of this kind down the hill, they would 
have got more benefit from the immense superiority of 
their position. 

A principal feature of this, as of all Garibaldi's battles, 
was the degree to which his officers exposed themselves. 
The General regarded courageous example as the most im- 
portant of all rules in the leadership of volunteers. 2 Bixio, 
on a white horse, seemed to be everywhere at once along the 
side of the steep ascent, leading on his battalion (ist to- 4th 
companies), which, after forming the reserve on the Pietra- 
lunga, became the left wing of the attack when the battle 
was joined in earnest. One of the very few mounted officers 
on the Italian side in this battle, he was able also to pay 
flying visits to Garibaldi, to warn him in vain against ex- 
posing a life, the loss of which would mean instant disaster 
to the hopes of Italy, and extermination for the Thousand. 
Garibaldi, wrapped in his funcio, had descended slowly from 
the Pietralunga on foot, carrying his sheathed sword over 
his shoulder. As he ascended the Pianto dei Romani he 
drew the sword and began to lead the foremost rushes. All 

^ There is a dispute as to whether it was the principal banner of the 
Thousand worked for Garibaldi in South America, or only a tricolour 
extemporised for company leadership. Tiirr's Div. 33, 37. Elia, ii. 35. 
Abba, 124. Abba, Noi. 66. Crispi, Diario, 21. Holyoake, 1. 234, 235. 
Bandi, 163, 175. Menghini, 425. Mazzini, xi. p. Ixxxii, note. Campo, 
109-111. 

^ Adamoii, 406, 407. 

s 



258 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

that his staff could do was to attempt to form a living shield 
for him in front and flank wherever he walked. In the 
performance of this duty Elia, the sailor of Ancona, fell 
desperately wounded with a bullet in the mouth which 
would otherwise have hit the General, as Garibaldi gratefully 
acknowledged. At another moment it was Sirtori who 
saved him, when he was surrounded with the banner in his 
hand. ' It was the best moment of my Hfe,' wrote the 
reserved and stoical Chief of Staff, after stating the fact in 
a letter to his brother.i 

The heat of the ascent was terrible, thirst raged. The 
enemy grew more numerous above, as fresh supports arrived 
and drew together in ever closer order as the concentric 
attack narrowed towards the top of the hill. On the other 
hand, the ranks of the foremost assailants grew thinner as 
they mounted ; already about a hundred had been hit, while 
many of the less heroic lingered in the valley or lower down 
the hill, fatigued, discouraged, and easily dropping behind 
out of a movement in open order on the broad mountain- 
side. To experienced eyes the battle seemed lost. Bixio, 
the second bravest man in the Thousand, said to Garibaldi 
what others may have thought, but no one else could say to 
him : ' General, I fear we ought to retreat.' Garibaldi looked 
up as if a serpent had stung him. ' Here we make Italy 
or die,' he said.^ Phrases of so solemn an order were not 
often in Garibaldi's mouth, and this one was no flourish 
of rhetoric, but expressed the bare truth of the political 
and military situation. Garibaldi was a cunning old 
guerilla, who knew well how to retreat, dodge, and circum- 
vent, but he perceived that on this day of all days in 
his hfe retreat would bring worse disaster on his cause and 
country than an honoured death upon the field. Retreat 
would be the certain prelude to destruction for all the 

1 Elia, ii. 36, 37, 40, Garibaldi's letter, Sirtori, 213. Elia is alive 

to-day (1909)- 

2 Bixio, 176. Abba's Bixio, 93. Mario, 262. Abba, 123. In Bologna 
MS. Bixio we read; 'Garibaldi non voile udire di ritirarsi come io 
consigliai.' 



THE LAST TERRACE 259 

Thousand in an ignominious man-hunt, and would cut off 
the chance he still saw above him on the hill-top of a bare 
victory, the key to the rapid conquest of the whole island 
and of the mainland after. Once beaten, the Neapolitan 
troops would lose their morale. The squadre on the heights 
around, and with them, as it were, all Sicily and Italy, were 
waiting to take their cue from this skirmish. Onwards lay 
the only path to Palermo, to Naples, to Rome. 

His spirit bore uphill the fainting battle. On the ex- 
treme right, where the ascent is less steep near the head of 
the valley, the 7th company under Benedetto Cairoli, aided 
by those squadre who had consented to follow S. Anna into 
the battle, pressed hard on the enemy's left wing. Young 
Enrico Cairoli, and three other students of Pavia, rushed in 
on the Neapolitan battery and captured one of the cannon in 
position.! 

At length Garibaldi found himself standing under cover 
of the last terrace below the summit of the Pianto. With 
him stood about 300 men, the largest group of those still 
left in the firing Hue, including Bixio, Tiirr, and the 
remnant of his staff, most of the surviving Carabineers, 
and the students of Pavia. A few yards overhead, on the 
top of a steep bank, the enemy's immensely superior forces 
were ranged in close order, firing down in regular volleys, 
but fortunately too high. They were so close that Gari- 
baldi's companions could hear the Neapolitan officers 
ordering their men to aim lower. At one moment the 
charge was sounded above, and if the Neapolitans had 
come on with a rush, they must have swept the slender 
line of patriots down the hill by sheer force of gravity. 
But the charge was sounded in vain. 

Here, under the partial cover of the last terrace. Garibaldi 
remained, for a quarter of an hour as it seemed to some 
present, resting his men before the final rush, and waiting 
for stragglers to come up. During this interval Bandi and 

' Cairoli, 88. Menghini, 31. Baratieri, 403. Tiirr's Div. 34. Riis- 
tow, 159. 

s -i 



26o GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

many others fell beneath the volleys, and began to drag 
themselves down the hill again towards a hut in the valley 
where the wounded collected as by instinct, with none 
to care for them since the numerous doctors were fighting 
in the front. 

Under the bank near the hill-top the young men, many 
of them the General's closest intimates, pressed round him : 
' General, ' they said, ' what are we to do ? ' ' Italiani, 
qui hisogna morire' ('Italians, here we must die'), he 
answered, and went about among the groups encouraging 
them for the last rush with words more stirring than any 
sure promise of victory. 

Meanwhile the Neapolitans above, though they could 
not be induced to charge, were conducting the defence with 
an angry ferocity of purpose. Some of them ran short of 
ammunition, and plucking up stones and earth began to 
hurl them down the bank. Garibaldi happened to be 
leaning forward with his head bent towards the ground, when 
he was hit on the back by a large stone. Canzio of Genoa, 
his future son-in-law, who was standing next to him, used 
afterwards to tell how he heard the thud of the stone, 
and next moment saw Garibaldi spring to his full height, 
his eyes kindhng their strange lights, and heard him cry 
out, ' Come on. They are throwing stones. Their ammun- 
ition is spent.' He dashed up the bank sword in hand 
and his men after him against the serried ranks, who in 
fact had not spent the whole of their ammunition. No 
one ever pretended to remember what happened at the 
top of the bank, but when the red madness of battle subsided 
the victors became aware of the Neapolitans streaming in 
flight across the plateau of the summit, and rushing head- 
long down the other side of the hill into the valley that 
divides the battle-field from Calatafimi. And there, on the 
heights of the Pianto dei Romani, where the monument 
stands to-day, the Italians, in an ecstasy of love and 
veneration, pressed round their chief and father .^ 

^ For the details of this last charge my authorities are : Conv. Canzio. 
Menghini, 425 (Canzio's Diary). Mem. 348. Bandi, 164-170. Zeusi, 




GARIBALDI. 
(From an engraving by W. Holl from an original photograph. British Museum.) 



THE VICTORY 261 

Utterly spent with thirst, heat and fatigue, the victors 
lay panting on the hill-top, and as they cooled themselves 
in the breeze of evening, watched the lines of fugitives 
winding across the deep valley and up the hill to Calatafimi 
town. From one point in the ravine across which the 
Neapolitans fled, could be seen the lonely temple of Segesta, 
diminished to a toy by distance, but none the less maj estic in 
the harmony of its perfect proportions. On the morrow 
many of the Thousand, tired as they were with battle, went 
three miles out of their way into the wilderness to admire 
this symbol of the wealth, art, and dignity of the men who 
once inhabited that poverty-stricken island.^ 

The loss on the victorious side amounted to thirty killed 
and upwards of a hundred severely wounded — probably a 
larger loss than that of the enemy. Nearly fifty more 
had been slightly wounded, but most of these, including 
Sirtori and Menotti Garibaldi, continued at their posts. 
Of all the cities of Italy Genoa claimed the heaviest 
losses ; both Bixio and Canzio wrote that she had fifty-four 
wounded. The sufferers were carried first to miserable 
quarters in Vita, whence some were moved to Salemi, 
Calatafimi, and Alcamo, being taken from place to place 
in the small country carts, gay with medieval carving and 
colour, that still delight every visitor to Sicily. They 

142, 143. Capuzzi, 32, 34. Belloni, 85. Tiirr's Div. 34. Bruzzesi, dopo 
25 anni, 39, 41. Rilstow, 161. 

Garibaldi's impressions of the battle, as written to his friends during 

the next two days, are worth quoting. To Bertani he wrote on May 16 : — 

' The enemy, who yielded to the bayonet charges of my old Caccia- 

tori delle Alpi dressed in plain clothes, fought valiantly and only yielded 

their positions after fierce fighting hand to hand {corpo a corpo). 

The battles we sustained in Lombardy were certainly less hardly 

contested than the battle of yesterday. The Neapolitans when they 

exhausted their cartridges threw stones at us like madmen.' 

To the Directors of the Million Rifles Fund he wrote on May 17 : — 

' I must confess the Neapolitans fought like lions, and certainly 
I have not had in Italy a battle so fierce nor adversaries so brave. 
. . . From this you can guess what was the courage of my old 
Cacciatori deW Alpi and the few Sicilians who fought with us.' — 
Ciampoli, 150. 

1 Capuzzi, 35. Ahba, 126, 135, 136. Ahba Not. 68. 



262 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

fared ill, for there was no ambulance. The ItaHan doctors, 
after doing all they could for a day, marched on in the 
ranks to take Palermo, and the Sicihans among whom 
the wounded were left had no great resources either of 
material or of skill.i 

Several dear comrades were lost to Garibaldi by the day 
of Calatafimi. Besides the good seaman Schiaffino, his 
friend and aide-de-camp Montanari was gone, a stern 
and somewhat impracticable RepubHcan ideaUst of the 
old school, who in '49 had followed him from Rome to 
San Marino and thence to the sand-dunes north of 
Ravenna, where at Garibaldi's express command he had 
parted from Anita and himself. Struck at Calatafimi, 
Montanari died at Vita on June 6 after the amputation of 
his leg. The staff was also deprived for a time of the 
services of Bandi, EHa, and young Manin, though all three 
eventually recovered. Luigi Biffi, a boy of thirteen, whose 
Alpine home Garibaldi had freed the year before, and 
who had come among the Thousand, lay dead on one of 
the terraces of the Pianto.^ 

When darkness fell, the victors slept on the hard- won 
summit, and dreamed of home and of those who would hear 
of this day's work in the cities of Italy. And the stars shone 
down on them and on their leader, who wrapped his puncio 
round him and turned to sleep like a child. 

But in Calatafimi there was terror and confusion that 
night. The defeated troops had fought bravely, but now 
they knew that it was indeed Garibaldi and his men with 
whom they had to deal, and that there was only too much 
truth in the tales told of him in every NeapoHtan barrack- 
room for eleven years past. Their demoraUsation was 
completed by the behef, fostered by Major Sforza, that Landi 

1 Baratieri, 409. Abha, 126, 137. Tiirr's Div. 35. Crispi, Diario, 21. 
Menghini, 426. Bandi, 169-171, 176-179. Franciosi, 16. Corleo, 16. 
Adamoli, 89. 

" Abba's Cose, 263-270. Bandi, 209, 210. Venosta, chap. xxx. 
Elenco sub Biffi. 



LANDI'S RETREAT 263 

had betrayed them in that he had never shown his face on 
the Pianto dei Romani, and absurd stories were soon afloat 
of his having been bribed by the invaders.^ The unhappy 
old man was bewildered by the events of the day which he 
had done so little to control. That evening he penned a 
dispatch to Castelcicala in Palermo, of which the first 
words, ' Help ! Prompt help ! ' indicated at least some 
intention of yet making good the formidable position of 
Calatafimi hill and town against a foe stil greatly inferior 
in force. The dispatch boasted that they had ' killed the 
great captain of the Italians,' whose name he seemed afraid 
to write down, and announced more truthfully that they had 
' taken his flag.' The letter was waylaid on the road by the 
Sicilian bands and brought into the Garibaldian camp, where 
its odd account of a battle, which the author had not himself 
witnessed, caused mingled indignation and merriment.^ 

But when night had fallen Landi abandoned all idea of 
further resistance, fearing as he tells us that his communi- 
cations would be cut by the rising of the country-side, and 
alarmed by a certain shortage of food and ammunition. He 
had also, as he declares, received previous orders to retreat 
on Palermo, which he ought, if we judge by his own account, 
to have obeyed that morning instead of allowing Sforza to 
become entangled in a conflict with the enemy.^ Now that 
the battle was over he was unnerved by defeat, and unable 
any longer to rely on the morale of his beaten soldiers. For 
all these reasons together he determined to retreat on the 
capital. At midnight the Neapolitans evacuated Calata- 
fimi, and reached Alcamo at two in the morning of May 16. 
Thence, after a few hours' rest, they made a forced march 
on Partinico, where the inhabitants fell on them. In 
that last vendetta of the old blood-feud between Nea- 
politan soldiery and Sicilian people, the horrors perpetrated 
on both sides left ghastly traces which a few days later 

* De Cesare, ii. 211. De Sivo, iii. 201. Cava, ii. loi. Naples MS. 
Landi. 

2 Tiirr's Div. 36, 37. 

^ Naples MS. Landi. Appendix M., below, ' Calatafirai,' ii. 



264 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

sickened the senses of Garibaldi and his Northerners, 
when they marched by the charred remnants of houses 
and of human bodies. From Partinico Landi's men fled 
on at evening by the mountain road through Monte- 
lepre, near which town the exhausted army was again 
attacked by local squadre, and lost part of its baggage. At 
dawn of May 17 they dragged themselves into Palermo in 
sorry plight, a living assurance to the dehghted populace 
that Garibaldi was indeed in the island, and no less formid- 
able in fact than in legend. Landi had traced back in a 
little over twenty-four hours the thirty-five miles of road 
that divided Calatafimi from the capital, which it had 
taken him a whole week to traverse on the way out.i 

On May 16, from the town of Calatafimi, Garibaldi sent 
a message to Rosolino Pilo, with whom his communications 
were now opened up along the route of Landi's retreat. 
He announced his victory, and bade Pilo kindle beacon 
fkes along the crests of the mountains surrounding the 
Conca d'Oro,2 to be a sign to the inhabitants of Palermo to 
lift up their eyes to the hills, where their friends were already 
gathering in strength, and whence they would soon descend 
to bay the enemy in his last lair. A few days after the 
battle, the authority of the Dictator was acknowledged in 
almost all Western Sicily, save in the garrisoned capital and 
its Conca d'Oro, where men watching the hill-fires night by 
night were consumed with a silent fury of expectation. ^ 

1 Naples MS. Landi. De Sivo, iii. 200. Abba Not. 76, 77. AdamoH, 
90. Menghini, 38, 426. Capuzzi, 44. Mem. 351. 

" CiampoH, 149. 

3 In Trapani, too, there was a Neapolitan garrison, but its power 
did not extend as far as Monte S. Giuliano. 




CALATAFIMI. 

This shows the Saracen castle, as seen by the Neapolitans on their fliglit from the Pianto 
del Komani to Calatatimi. The town itself is hidden, round the side of hill to right of picture. 




OUTSKIRTS OF PALERMO, CONCA D'ORO, AND MOUNTAINS. 

View from the roof of the Palace. The road on the left leads to Porrazzi, that on the 
right to Monreale. 



CHAPTER XV 

IN THE MOUNTAINS ROUND PALERMO 

' One had need to be a lion-fox and have luck on one's side.' — Carlyle, 
French Revolution, III. bk. i. chap. iv. 

Even before the battle of Calatafimi it had been deter- 
mined at Court to withdraw the incompetent Castelcicala 
from the governorship of Sicily, and to send out in his stead 
a viceroy with plenary powers, distinguished by the lofty 
title of the King's alter ego, or ' other self.' Among the 
impressionable populations of the south, this new move 
might have done much to counteract the spell cast over 
them by Garibaldi's name, if it had been possible to find a 
man with sufficient prestige and ability to fill the part. 
There was only one such man in the kingdom. Filangieri 
was summoned from his retirement to a Council of State 
held at Naples on May 14, at which the ex-minister had the 
satisfaction of hearing his reactionary rivals join with their 
royal master in imploring him to forget the past and to go 
once more to save Sicily and the kingdom. But Filangieri 
would not go. He had advised reform and friendship 
with Piedmont, his advice had been rejected, and the conse- 
quences which he had prophesied had occurred. He refused 
to try to mend what his opponents had marred, pleaded 
age and ill-health, and was deaf to the King's repeated 
entreaties. But when Ischitella, and, it is said, Nunziante, 
had in turn declined to go, and the difficulty of finding an 
alter ego became pressing, Filangieri so far relented in his 
Achillean wrath as to advise the sending of a most incom- 
petent Patroclus, Ferdinando Lanza.' 

I De Cesare, ii. 215, 216, 244, 245. Nisco, Fr. II, 33, 
265 



266 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

General Lanza was a Sicilian, aged seventy-two, who had 
sensed in his native island as Filangieri's Chief of Staff, and 
was best remembered as a source of innocent merriment to 
Palermo, where he had tumbled down with his horse on a 
rainy King's birthday, and soused his magnificent re\-iew 
uniform in some particularly ample puddles. It was an 
accident that might have happened to anyone, but it had 
seemed specially appropriate when it befell Lanza, and the 
announcement that he was now returning as the King's 
alter ego caused more amusement than alarm among the 
Sicilian rebels.^ 

On May i6 he sailed to Palermo, in time to witness the 
entry next morning of Landi's beaten troops and the general 
panic that ensued on the news of Calatafimi. Thoroughly 
unnerved by a situation that was in fact serious enough, he 
began on May 17 to send home alarmist reports. ' The 
city,' he wrote, ' is in great ferment, and has a sinister 
appearance. ... A rising seems imminent. AH the \-Lllages 
round Palermo are in arms, and are only waiting for the 
arrival of the band of foreigners to break into the city.' - 

TTie alter ego wavered between two plans of campaign 
which had been discussed in high quarters at Naples. The 
first plan, which was to hold Palermo and send out strong 
columns to take the offensive against Garibaldi, was favoured 
by the King, by Nunziante, and by the majority" of the 
Council. But Filangieri had put on paper a rival poHcy, 
namely, to leave a garrison in the CasteUamare fortress, weU 
\-ictualled and in touch with the fleet ; evacuate the rest of 
the capital ; send the troops thus set free to join with the 
garrisons of Girgenti and Messina ; make a real occupation 
with these forces of the east and centre of the island ; pro- 
claim Liberal reforms, and when time was ripe return upon 
Palermo as he hin^elf had done in 1849.^ 

Filangieri's plan appears to have been a misreading of 
the actual conditions of 1S60 by the false analogy of 1S48-49. 

* De Cesare, iL 217, 218. 

- PaUrmo MS. PoIi.iia, letter of May 17 to Minister for Sidly. 

* Franci, u 49, 1S2-1S4. Cronaca, 302-305. 



LANZA AS 'ALTER EGO* 267 

If once the Neapolitans had left Palermo, Cavour would 
have seen that they never came back. The abandonment 
of the capital before the mere terror of Garibaldi's name, 
would have meant a blow to their prestige in Sicily which 
only Filangieri himself could possibly have made good. And 
as he refused to execute his own plan, the proposal of it only 
served further to confuse and weaken the mind of his nominee 
Lanza, who, while actually concentrating his troops for a 
defence of Palermo, argued and wrote in favour of a retreat 
to Messina.i No real confidence was placed by the King in 
his alter ego, even at the moment of his departure from 
Naples. His ' plenary ' powers were in practice as restricted 
as those of former governors of the island. Indeed, as early 
as May 18, General Nunziante was sent to Palermo to see 
that he assumed the offensive against Garibaldi, who was 
already drawing near the capital.^ 

Popular Italian art usually represents the Thousand as a 
number of well-shaved and well-appointed young men in 
military gaiters, smart kepis, and clean red shirts. Such, 
no doubt, was the impression produced at certain moments 
by some of the regiments of volunteers who joined Garibaldi 
later in the year, but the Thousand, when they marched on 
after a day's rest in Calatafimi town, presented an appear- 
ance more resembling that of a Boer commando towards the 
close of the South African war. After their scramble up the 
Pianto dei Romani, the plain clothes in which nine- tenths of 
them were dressed were falHng off them in rags, their boots were 
dropping to pieces, many limped painfully along, and many 
had head or limb bandaged. Before they stormed Palermo 
at the end of the month, forced marches, sleepless nights, and 
merciless exposure on the mountains to semi-tropical rains 
and sun had reduced them to veritable scarecrows. ^ 

But if their legs were weary, their hearts were light, not 

^ Cronaca, 107. De Sivo, iii. 206, 208. 

2 Cronaca, 107, 305. De Cesare, ii. 220. Nisco, Fr. II, 33. 
' Capuzxi, 35, 43. Abba, 137. Conv. Tedaldi. Calvino {Guardiotie 
ii. 444). Times, June 8, p. 10, col. 3. 



268 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

indeed with the assurance of victory, but with the sense that 
they were enviable above all Italians, that their unique 
campaign was poetry made real.i After Calatafimi they 
knew that they had at least avoided fiasco, and that even if 
they now died with Garibaldi they would be well remembered 
in the annals of the cause. While many, like Sirtori, had 
never bargained for more than a good death, many began to 
complain that they had been enticed by false reports as to 
the fighting power of the Sicilian rebels. ^ Others shared 
the now confident hopes of the native population. But all 
alike, seeing that Garibaldi was among them and was well 
pleased with them after the battle, were happy in a situation 
characteristically summed up by Bixio, who said to his 
battahon, ' We shall soon be either in Palermo or in hell * 
[a Palermo od all' Inferno).^ 

On the sunny morning of May 17, Garibaldi and his men 
marched out of Calatafimi, crossed the valley of the Freddo, 
and ascended the high-road to the city of Alcamo, built on a 
ridge which overlooks the gulf of Castellamare. In the corn- 
fields outside the town, men and women fell on their knees 
as he passed. Their primitive minds could not fail to attach 
some idea of supernatural power to any greatly admired 
object, but with the help of Father Pantaleo the Dictator 
found a means of diverting this embarrassing idolatry 
from himself into its natural channels, without losing the 
help of popular superstition for his own and his country's 
cause. He consented to assume the part of crusader 
sanctified by religion, as the champion of the Sicilian clergy 
and people against the foreign tyrant. When the Thousand 
entered Alcamo, they were led to the principal church, 
where Father Pantaleo awaited them. The Dictator knelt 
while the friar blessed him, crucifix in hand. 

1 E.g., Cairoli, 331. ' Cara Mammina, t'assicuro che questa spedizione 
e cosi poetica . . . ' writes Enrico Cairoli. Such expressions are constant 
in letters and memoirs of the Thousand. 

2 E.g., Nievo, 346, 354. Abba Not. 74, 75. 

3 Bixio really said it at Partinico on May 18, see Capuzzi, 45, though 
it is sometimes put into Bixio's or Garibaldi's mouth on the heights of 
Gibilrossa. 



THE CEREMONY AT ALCAMO 269 

Garibaldi, who was at this time of his life somewhere in 
process between deism and pantheism, had no belief in the 
supernatural, but his interpretation of nature was that of a 
mystic rather than of a materialist. Strongly anti-clerical, 
he was not by temperament anti-religious. He wished to 
see the world purified of priests, but he regarded Christ as 
the greatest of mankind, who had delivered his brothers 
from slavery. In North and Central Italy, where the Church 
was predominantly anti-national, he would not participate 
in ceremonies conducted by priests. But finding himself 
suddenly transferred to an atmosphere where democracy 
and patriotism were religious, and where the priest urged 
the people forward on the path of political liberty, he was 
at once impelled by instinct and drawn by policy to 
join in the forms of popular emotion. The rest of the 
Thousand, less simple than he in his equalitarian love 
of mankind, did not share his feelings of fraternity 
with the Sicilians, of whom for the most part they enter- 
tained a low opinion. They were not therefore influenced 
as he was by the emotional atmosphere around them, and 
looked on with mingled feelings at an ' outburst of 
mysticism ' which they recognised as genuine on the part 
of their chief. 1 

After the religious ceremony, the Dictator applied him- 
self to political business. On the advice of Crispi, who was 
now appointed Secretary of State, he instituted the office of 
Governor with specified civil powers. There was ultimately 
to be a Governor for each of the twenty-four districts of 
the island, and for the present Baron S. Anna, who had 
fought so well at Calatafimi, was nominated for his native 
district of Alcamo, and Don Alberto Mistretta for the dis- 
trict of Mazzara, both of which were already dependent on 
Garibaldi for the maintenance ©f pubhc order. At the same 
time he decreed the abolition for all Sicily of the macino, 
or excise on ground corn, a concession demanded by the 

1 Ahha, 137, 138. Capuzzi, 41. De Cesare, ii. 316, 317. Mario, 264. 
Mario Mac. 247, 252, 253. CihmpoU, 899, 900, 935, 936. Oddo, 270-272. 



270 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

peasants as the condition of their support, but destined 
before long to prove embarrassing to the Dictator's finance, 
since the macino suppHed half the annual revenue.i 

On May i8 the Thousand made their first long day's 
march since the battle. Leaving Alcamo, they followed the 
high-road eastward across the uneven lowlands that decline 
towards the gulf of Castellamare, cut by water-courses, and 
covered with vines and corn. They hurried through the 
broad, mile-long street of Partinico, to escape from the 
unsavoury evidence of mutual carnage and cruelty which 
marked the track of Landi's retreat through a hostile popula- 
tion. Immediately outside the town they took the road to 
the right, abandoned the plain and mounted to the hamlet 
of Borgetto that hangs with its fruit gardens on the edge of 
the first steep ascent. There Bixio's battalion, composing 
the rearguard, bivouacked amid the clamour of nightingales.^ 
But the vanguard pushed on up the high-road, by the side of 
a gorge of Alpine proportions on their left, until at nightfall 
they reached the top of the pass of Renda. There they 
encamped on the watershed dividing the streams that 
irrigate the Conca d'Oro of Palermo from those that flow 
westward to Partinico and the gulf of Castellamare. The 
desert spot where they lay down to sleep was called the 
altipiano of Renda, a fiat plain a few hundred yards long by 
the side of the road, enclosed by knolls of grey rock. Here 
their head quarters were fixed during three days of almost 
ceaseless rain, to which they were exposed without tents, 
coats or other shelter, at a height of about 2000 feet above 
the sea.^ 

On the morning of May 19, during a respite from the 

1 Leggi, 6-10, decrees 3-8, Alcamo, May 17. Palermo MSS. Br. Cons. 
Papers, Mr. Goodwin's letter, June 18. Part of Filangieri's plan, see 
p. 266, above, was to remit the macino. Franci, i. 183. 

" Capuzzi, 43-47. 

3 Henceforth use Map IV., end of book. The altipiano, clearly dis- 
tinguishable, is now under vines, but in i860 was uncultivated, as I was 
told by a local peasant who claimed to have lived there all his life, viz. 
since 1850. Abba, 141. Tiirr's Div. 39. Paolucci, Pilo, 272. Giusta, 8, 9. 



IN VIEW OF THE CONCA D'ORO 271 

downpour, the Thousand for the first time saw Palermo. A 
few hundred yards beyond their camping-ground at Renda, 
the road, after passing between a group of grey-snouted 
crags, suddenly comes to the edge of the mountains, and 
there, as if startled by the sudden glory of the prospect dis- 
closed, takes a rapid turn aside and then plunges steeply 
down to Pioppo. From this high vantage point, known as 
Misero-cannone,! the Thousand became aware of the theatre 
of mountains, from Monte Grifone round to Monte Cuccio, on 
the middle part of which they themselves stood ; while down 
below, enclosed between these stately barriers and the sea, 
was spread the Conca d'Oro itself, one vast grove of oranges, 
lemons, olives, and cactus, the magnificent legacy to modern 
times of the Arab methods of irrigation. There, like a 
rich jewel set in the ' shell of gold,' lay Palermo on the 
edge of the azure sea ; and there in the harbour rode the 
warships of Naples and of various other nations, set to 
watch the issue of this wild adventure, for news of which 
all the world was waiting. In plain and city, that seemed 
asleep and dreaming in the peaceful distance, a disarmed 
population was chafing in frantic expectation of their 
arrival, and 21,000 soldiers with artillery, fortresses, and 
all the panoply of war, stood ready to guard the city from 
their assault. Who were they, a band of forlorn and hungry 
watchers on the mountain tops, that they should take a 
capital from a kingdom's army and fleet ? 2 

To advance direct on Palermo and attack such a garri- 
son in face would be certain destruction. Garibaldi's only 
chance was to make such skilful use of the screen of moun- 
tains as to be able to conceal the weakness of his force 

^ Really ' MiseZ-cannone,' a name of Arab origin, like Misilmeri. At 
this point also another road goes off to the right to S. Giuseppe Jato. 

2 Abba, 143. Paolucci, Pilo, 272, 273. Pietraganzili, ii. 93, 94. No 
one would mention the cactus alongside of the orange and lemon as 
characteristic of the Conca d'Oro of to-day. Since i860 the iico d' India, 
or prickly-pear cactus, with its pennyworth of fruit for its intolerable deal 
of fleshy, amorphous, antediluvian shrub (see illustration, p. 2S8), has been 
largely displaced in the Conca d'Oro, as throughout all Sicily, in favour of 
the more profitable forms of agriculture and arboriculture. 



272 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

and to effect a rush into the city at some ill-guarded point. 
If once he and his Thousand could appear in the heart of 
the city, the population would rise and fight in the streets as 
in 1848, and so place the invaders on something a httle 
nearer equality with the immense forces of the Neapolitan 
garrison. 1 

The peaks, ridges, and long, deep valleys of the mountains, 
among which Garibaldi from May 19-26 gradually worked 
out this the supreme military problem of his life, resemble in 
size, shape, and general character the highest part of the 
English Lake District. It may give some notion of 
the character of the ground to imagine the hills between 
Helvellyn and Scafell with all their water-courses dried up, 
and instead of an universal and undying plenty of wet grass 
and moss and bracken spread between one precipice and the 
next, a sparse and short-lived crop of green herbs and bright- 
coloured flowers filling the interstices of the grey rocks after 
the asphodels of spring are withered, with here and there 
an underwood of aloe and cactus, and in valley bottoms 
a sudden wealth of olives and fruit-trees in some rocky Eden 
loud with nightingales. 

The roads in this region were very few, and a small and 
mobile force, prepared to abandon its cannon and traverse the 
wildest recesses of the hills, with the aid of the inhabitants 
as guides, spies and transport agents, might, under a great 
leader, achieve some masterpiece of strategy. Calatafimi 
had been a soldier's battle, though the soldiers had fought 
with the spirit breathed into them by their general on the 
field itself ; but the entry into Palermo was rendered possible 
only by the genius of the man who was as cunning in war as 
he was brave in battle. 

Half-way along the high-road between Renda and the 
capital, almost at the foot of the hills and close above the 

1 The lowest official Neapolitan estimate of the garrison at Palermo on 
May 23 is 20,861 men ; De Sivo, iii. 208. Cronaca, 120. But Captain 
Cava, of the Neapolitan General Staff, estimated it at 24,000 ; Cava, ii. 
12, 84, and General Marra {Oss.), 13, 'never more than 24,000.' 



GARIBALDI AND PTLO 273 

orange groves of the Conca d'Oro, lies Monreale, famous for 
its Norman cathedral encrusted with the most magnificent 
mosaics in Europe. It was so strongly occupied by an advance 
guard of the garrison of Palermo that to storm it would have 
cost the Thousand more than they could afford as the price 
of a mere outwork to the enemy's main position. Although 
Garibaldi was ready to dare anything, he was equally 
determined to waste nothing. If he spent his Thousand 
prematurely, he would be a beggar indeed. If, however, the 
few hundred squadre whom Rosolino Pilo was keeping 
together in the hills, could occupy precisely those heights at 
the foot of which Monreale lay, its garrison would then be 
forced to retreat. Garibaldi at Renda, and Pilo three miles 
north at Sagana were in close communication, and it was 
agreed between them that Pilo should advance from Sagana 
to support his outposts at the Monastery of S. Martino, a 
vast edifice buried in the heart of those wild valleys. Using 
S. Martino as his head quarters, Pilo was to occupy in force 
the heights to the south-east of the monastery, especially 
the hill of the Castellaccio, an old ruined castle visible from 
afar as it towers above Monreale. Garibaldi supported this 
movement by a reconnaissance along the high-road through 
Pioppo, but the bulk of the Thousand remained on the 
heights near Renda until the result of Pilo's operation should 
be known. 

The Neapolitans, however, did not wait to be attacked. 
A courageous Swiss officer. Colonel Von Mechel, with an 
energetic subordinate, the Neapolitan Major Bosco, had been 
sent by Lanza with 3000 men to strengthen the garrison of 
Monreale.i On the morning of May 21 they took the offen- 
sive, pushed a column along the road against the skirmishers 
of the Thousand, and drove them back along the flanks of 
the mountains from Lenzitti through Pioppo village, back 
on to the heights of Misero-cannone and Renda. In this 
affair, in the Vallecorta, was killed Piediscalzi, the spirited 

^ Besides the 3000 under Von Mechel there were already in Monreale 
three battalions under Colonel Bonanno, who took a not very active share 
in the events of the subsequent days. De Sivo, iii. 209. 



274 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

leader of the indefatigable Albanians of Plana del Greci, many 
of whom were now fighting side by side with the Garibaldini. 

Meanwhile two other columns were dispersing Pile's 
bands in the mountains overhead. One column moved up 
the San Martino valley to occupy the monastery, while 
another from Monreale climbed the steep hills of Castellaccio 
and Giardinello, and before the squadre were aware that they 
were the attacked instead of the attackers, fired down upon 
them as they stood on the lower Neviera hill. Pilo, who 
had seated himself among some rocks to write a letter to 
Garibaldi asking for help, was shot dead with the pen 
in his hand, and his men fled over the mountains,^ 

The brave SiciUan and Italian patriot, who thus died on 
the eve of the consummation of his life's work, would readily 
have acknowledged that, in his own and Mazzini's eyes, the 
real object of his mission to Sicily had already been accom- 
pHshed when Garibaldi had landed at Marsala. Yet his 
defeat and death were at the moment a severe blow to the 
cause, and not only checked the advance but endangered the 
position of the Thousand. For the camp at Renda, high 
placed though it was, lay in a hollow of the mountain- tops, 
and now that the Neapolitans had disposed of Pilo's force, 
they might at any moment appear on the heights com- 
manding Renda from the north-east. Garibaldi was 
therefore obliged, as the result of the fighting on May 21, 
to shift his camp without delay .2 

Thus compelled to abandon the Partinico-Monreale road 
by which he had first approached the capital, the General 
determined to move across country to the other great road 
connecting Palermo with the interior, which runs to Corleone 
through Parco and Plana dei Greci. He would there enter 
upon a new sphere of operations in the mountains to the 
south-east of the Conca d'Oro, which were already occupied 

1 Cronaca, 114-116. De Sivo, iii. 208, 209. Conv. Armaforie. Conv. 
Vitali. Calvino {Guardione, ii. 437, 438). Paolucci, Pilo, 272-282 ; Riso, 
57-62. La Lumia, 106. Pietraganzili, ii. 91. Piana dei Greci, 38. Giusta, 
g. Cuniberti, 33. 

2 Mem. 352j 354. Paolucci, Riso, 62. 



LA MASA AT GIBILROSSA 275 

by squadre under La Masa more numerous than those that 
had followed Pilo. Immediately after the battle of Calata- 
fimi, the Dictator had wisely detached La Masa to travel 
through the island and rouse the people to arms. Unlike 
other Sicilians of the Thousand — such as Carini, Orsini, 
and Calvino — La Masa had no marked military talent, 
but he had influence as an orator and ability as an 
organiser, and was well fitted to play the part of a Sicilian 
Danton. With less than half a dozen comrades, he made 
a dangerous cross-country journey from Calatafimi through 
districts still infested by police and compagni d'armi, 
through Roccamena and the precipices and forests of 
Ficuzza, till he reached the more open country of Mezzojuso 
and Villafrate. In that region and along the coast from Ter- 
mini to Bagheria, he was known and trusted as a local man 
and a leader of 1848, His appearance among his own 
people dispersed their fears and uncertainties, and he 
was able to dissipate a strange rumour that Garibaldi 
had not really landed at Marsala at all, but was being 
personated by a Pole. In a few days he formed a camp of 
some 3000 squadre at Misilmeri and Gibilrossa, and extended 
his outposts and lit signal fires at night on the top of Monte 
Grifone. He was much indebted to the patriotism of the 
citizens of Termini, who, in spite of the NeapoHtan garrison 
holding the fort and bombarding their town, supplied his 
camp at Gibilrossa with men, food and such arms and 
ammunition as they could provide. Garibaldi's desire to 
get into touch with La Masa's squadre was one of his principal 
objects in moving from Renda to Parco.i 

This difficult operation, to be effected in the face of the 
enemy occupying Pioppo and Monreale, was carried out with 
secrecy and success on the night of May 21-22. It was 
necessary to march round the head waters of the Oreto across 
the stony and desolate moor in which it rises, some miles 
above the groves of the Conca d'Oro. Starting along the road 

1 Mem. 354. La Masa {Sic), pp. xxix-xxxvi, xxxix-xlii, 67-138. 
O. B's La Masa, 235-240, Termini, passim. Pietraganzili, ii. 109-115, 
135, 152-159. 

T 2 



276 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

that leads back from Misero-cannone towards San Giuseppe 
Jato, the Thousand turned off it after two and a half miles, 
at a solitary and deserted toll-bar house [Catena), and began 
to cross the moor, at a height of some 2400 feet, by a bridle 
track so marshy in some places and so rocky in others as to be 
difficult walking even on a fine day, and almost impassable 
on that dark and windy night when torrents of rain seemed to 
carry the ground from under their feet, * Not a soldier but 
fell,' wrote one who made the march. ' I fell- thrice, many 
others ten or a dozen times.' Thus they stumbled and rolled 
in single file along a path of much the same general character 
as the passage of the Esk Hause in Cumberland, from the 
top of the Sty Head to the top of the Rossett Gill Pass. 
Close above them to the right, unseen in the darkness, were 
the precipices of Carpaneto and Moarda. But the local 
guides were faithful and competent, walking with Garibaldi 
in front to feel out the invisible way, and on the early 
morning of May 22 the Thousand, soaked, bruised and 
utterly exhausted, many of them without shoes on their 
feet, staggered down into Parco, where they were made 
heartily welcome to all the food and fire that the inhabitants 
could supply. The cannon, left near the toll-bar house 
during the hours of darkness, were dismounted, and next 
day slung on poles and carried by Sicilian mountaineers 
along the same path which the infantry had traversed during 
the night .^ By this difficult march Garibaldi had given the 
slip to Von Mechel at Monreale and gained a full two days' 
respite. 2 

The small town of Parco lies at the foot of the mountains, 
on the very edge of the Conca d'Oro. Straight above its roofs 
the Cozzo di Crasto rises to a height of about 2000 feet above 
the sea, and presents a natural fortress of immense strength 
against an enemy approaching from Palermo. On its rocky 
summit, attainable by means of the winding high-road that 
leads towards Plana and Corleone, Garibaldi fixed his camp, 

1 Campo, 114. Couv. Vitali and Conv. Armaforte. Campo and Vitali 
were with the cannon. Mem. 354, bears out their statement. 

2 See Appendix N.. ' The night march to Parco.' 



THE POSITION ABOVE PARCO 277 

dug trenches, and planted his ancient artillery. He wrote 
to La Masa on May 22 that he ' liked the position well, and 
would defend it, and then take the offensive ' — no doubt 
against the capital itself. On the evening of the same day 
he sent orders to La Masa, which he repeated on May 23, 
bidding him descend from Gibilrossa into the plain and 
attack the Neapolitans in flank and rear as soon as they 
developed their expected attack on the Cozzo di Crasto.i 

The plan was not ill-conceived. An action, beginning in 
the defence of the formidable position above Parco, aided 
by La Masa's flank attack on the Neapolitans, might well 
develop into a counter-attack which should lead the victors 
into Palermo at the heels of the defeated enemy. But the 
position, which it was proposed to defend in the first instance, 
had a weak point. The Cozzo di Crasto, high as it stood and 
steep as were its slopes towards Palermo, was only a spur 
projecting from the still higher range of Moarda and 
Rebottone. Early on May 24 Garibaldi became aware that 
part of Von MecheFs four battalions were moving from 
Monreale across the head waters of the Oreto, clearly intent 
on occupying the Rebottone mountains above and behind 
the Cozzo di Crasto, while the remainder of the forces 
occupying Monreale, joined by two fresh battahons from 
Palermo under General Colonna, were to make a frontal 
attack by way of Parco, To save himself from being at 
once outnumbered, surrounded and overlooked, Garibaldi 
ordered the Thousand to retreat on Plana dei Greci. La 
Masa's squadre, who had meanwhile begun to descend into 
the Conca d'Oro by way of Belmonte-Mezzagno to attack 
Colonna' s flank, fled back into the hills in panic and anger, 
declaring that Garibaldi had deceived them, that he was 
retreating into the interior and that all Avas lost. La Masa 
with difficulty prevented a general dispersion, rallied his 
disheartened forces at Gibilrossa, and wrote next day to 
implore Garibaldi not to retreat to Corleone, but to join 
him at Gibilrossa for a united attack on Palermo. 2 

^ La Masa (Sic), pp. xlii-v. Paolucci, Corrao, 129. 

* De Sivo, hi. 209, 210. Cronaca, 120. Fraud, i. 53. Marra Oss. 9. 



278 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

Meanwhile the Thousand began to ascend the winding 
mountain road from Cozzo di Crasto to the pass that leads 
over to Plana del Greci. To cover their retreat, the Genoese 
Carabineers fought a rear-guard action with the Neapolitans 
coming up from Parco. The other part of Von Mechel's 
column, who had ascended the Rebottone mountains by the 
Portelle-PuzziUi pass and threatened to head off the retreat, 
were met on the rocks of Campanaro, more than 3000 feet 
above the sea, by a smaU detachment of the vahant Albanian 
squadre, supported by the main body of the Thousand, who 
had to turn off the road to repel the flank attack. At sight 
of the determined front of the Garibaldini, the Neapohtan 
vanguard shrank back and let them pass. Having thus 
cleared the way, they crossed the watershed near the 
Madonna del Bosco, and descended the high-road into Plana 
del Greci, on the side of the mountains facing away from the 
Conca d'Oro into the interior of the island.^ 

On the evening of May 24, while the Thousand were sadly 
filing into the street of Plana del Greci, and far away on 
Gibihossa La ]Ma5a was doiag all that oratory and gesticu- 
lation could do to prevent the dispersion of his discouraged 
squadre, the general behef was that the revolution was at an 
end. The SicUians, who had sincerely wished and expected 
Garibaldi to attack Palermo, could hardly beheve their eyes 
when they saw him retreat ; they began to doubt the 
magical powers which they had attributed to him, and 
took offence at the imperturbable calm of his demeanour 
in retreat, which they declared to be ' indifference.' - At 
Plana many of them disbanded and made off for their 
homes.2 If now the two battalions under Colonna, and the 
four under Von Mechel; had pressed hard along the road 
into the Albanian village, it would have fared ill with 



La Masa (Sic.), pp. xlvi-xlviii. Mem. 355. Bologna MS. Bixio. Pietra- 
gamili, ii. 230-232. 

1 Mem. 355. Piana dei Greci, 40. CapHzzi, 57, 58. Bologna MS. 
Bixio. Paolucci, Riso, 67, 6S. Conv. Vitali and Armaforte. Campo, 
115, 116. 

2 Paolucci, Riso, 6S, ^ Conv. Paiernostro. 



THE ARTILLERY SENT TO CORLEONE 279 

the hopes of Italy. But Colonna returned to Palermo,^ 
and Von Mechel, though he had the merit so rare in the 
Neapohtan service of taking and keeping the offensive, was 
no less slow than he was sure. Consequently Garibaldi 
was left to his own devices at Plana dei Greci during the 
critical evening and night of May 24, and was able, then and 
there, to carry out unobserved a plan that turned the tide of 
war, and caught the enemy in the snare of his own success. 

Plana dei Greci, ' the plain of the Greeks,' was a flat, 
fertile Alp, about two miles across from side to side, 
lying about 2000 feet above the sea-level, but almost 
entirely surrounded by rocky mountains rising from one 
to two thousand more. Its well- watered soil had for 
nearly four centuries been cultivated by the Greek- 
Albanian colonists, who lived in their little town on the 
northern edge of the basin, where the road from Palermo 
entered it. To the east of the plain a by-road led through 
a gap in the circle of mountains to the hamlet of S. Cristina 
Gela, and there came abruptly to an end. On the south, 
the high-road wound conspicuously up the mountain 
side, leading to Corleone and the interior of the island. If 
Garibaldi left Plana by the high-road, it would mean that 
he finally turned his back on Palermo and abandoned all 
hope of success. And that way he sent his baggage, his sick 
and wounded, and his five cannon under the command of 
Orsini, with fifty artillerymen and an escort of about 150 
squadre, many of them returning to their native Corleone.2 
Before darkness fell on May 24, this column was clearly seen 
by everyone in the plain winding up the mountain side by 
the southern road, and it was assumed by all that the 
infantry were about to follow. 

And, indeed, soon after nightfall, the Thousand were 

1 De Sivo, iii. 210. Ctonaca, 128. Cava, ii. 88, note. Bonanno, who 
with his three battalions (eighteen companies), had joined Von Mechel's 
four battalions in the attack on Cozzo di Crasto. returned to Monreale. 
Cronara, 122, 123. 

- Narrative by Sampieri, in Tiiry's Div. 384 and Menghini, 71. Com. 
Pal&rnostro. 



28o GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

mustered in the street, and following in the track of the 
artillery, crossed the plain by the Corleone high-road, 
avoiding the by-road to S. Cristina Gela. But when they 
were two miles from the town, near the foot of the southern 
mountains and on the banks of the river that waters that 
side of the plain, they turned off the road at dead of night, 
unseen by friend or foe, and passing by the water-mill of 
Ciaferia, were led across country to the hamlet of S. Cristina 
Gela. Skirting its southern side, they took to a rough drove 
road that led eastwards towards Marineo, across rolling hills 
and valleys. Late at night they bivouacked in a wood, 
among the lonely pastures of Chianettu.^ 

It was a starry night, and Garibaldi gazed at the un- 
wonted brightness of Arcturus. Half in jest, he told his 
aides-de-camp that Arcturus was his star, which he had 
chosen for himself when he was a sailor-lad, and that its 
splendour foreboded victory. The word was passed round 
the camp and gave joy to all, not merely as an omen, but as 
a token of the General's happy mood and the renewed 
prospect of an attack upon Palermo. 2 

Next morning (May 25), descending from the higher 
prairie land, they followed one of the most lovely foot-paths 
in Sicily, across rocky ravines filled with olives and fruit- 
trees, and with poplars in the stream bottoms, until they 
reached Marineo, a large and dirty town, planted amid 
nature's fantastic magnificence beneath a precipice pillar 
resembling the Gibraltar rock. 

From Marineo, where they rested for several hours, 
a paved road led down a broad and fertile corn valley to 
La Masa's headquarters at Misilmeri and Gibilrossa. The 
General sent word to La Masa that he would arrive at 
Misilmeri on the following day, but late in the afternoon, 
growing impatient of delay, he ordered the weary Thousand 

1 See Appendix O. From Piana to Marineo. There are few trees now 
(igo8) on the heights of Chianettu (or Pianetto), but the bivouac in the 
' wood * there is mentioned by Bixio {Bologna MS.), Perini, 199, Garibaldi 
{Mem. 356), and Canzio {Menghini, 428). 

2 Tiirr's Risposta, 10. Ahha, 159. 



THE DOUBLE BACK TO GIBILROSSA 281 

on to the road, and kept them afoot till they entered Misil- 
meri an hour before midnight on May 25. The inhabitants, 
in the wildest dehght at the resurrection of their magical 
Garibaldi, illuminated the town in his honour. At eleven 
o'clock he sent the following message to La Masa in the 
camp of the squadre at Gibilrossa : ' Dear La Masa, I hope to 
see you at three to-morrow morning to make important 
arrangements ' [per comhinare cose importanti). All knew 
that the combined forces would now fall upon the capital.i 

Not only had Garibaldi shaken off Von Mechel's pursuit, 
but he had deluded that officer into leading three or four 
thousand of the best troops in the Neapolitan army, in- 
cluding a battahon of German mercenaries, upon a wild 
goose chase into the middle of the island. The troops 
defending Palermo, with whom Garibaldi was about to try 
conclusicais, were weakened by the absence of the bravest 
officers and men, and were put off their guard by the positive 
belief that he and his Thousand had fled in rout to Corleone, 
and would never trouble them again. 

For when Von Mechel on May 25 tardily entered Plana 
dei Greci, he had, of course, been told that the Garibaldini 
had left the town by the Corleone road. In happy ignorance 
that they had subsequently doubled back to Marineo, he 
sent back messages of victory to make Lanza, the nervous 
alter ego, feel secure in the capital, while he himself set for- 
ward (Mice more to run Garibaldi to earth. But though 
determined and obstinate, he was singularly slow in pursuit, 
and about the time that the man whom he thought he was 
pursuing was really breaking into Palermo city, he himself 
had only reached the royal forest of Ficuzza, eight miles 
south of Plana. There the King's gamekeepers gave the 
Neapolitan officers some warning that a division had 
been effected in Garibaldi's forces, whereupon Major 
Bosco, at least according to his own and his friends' 

> Capuzzi, 59-62. Giusta, g, lo. Abba Not. 106-108, Paolucci, Riso, 
70-73. La Masa {Sic), pp. xlix, 1. 



282 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

account, urged his superior either to return at once to 
Palermo, or else to march on Marineo by a road that 
turned off thither from the spot where the discussion was 
being held. But the Switzer was obstinate ; he did not 
love his able but pushing subordinate, and gave orders 
to continue the advance on Corleone. There the artillery 
officer Orsini, to whom Garibaldi had given the powers of 
pro-Dictator, with instructions to take every occasion for 
making a display, roused the populace, and on May 27 
fought a spirited rear-guard action on the hills behind the 
town. The Neapolitans lost some men, but captured two of 
the five cannon ; many of Orsini's followers dispersed. 
Having tasted blood. Von Mechel pressed on past Corleone, 
probably still hoping that he was on the traces of Garibaldi, 
or at least of the bulk of his force. Led on by the ignis 
fatuus of three obsolete cannon and a few score tired men 
and horses, he passed by way of Campo Fiorito as far as 
Giuliana and Chiusa, within fifteen miles of the south coast 
of Sicily. There, on May 28, a messenger reached him with 
the news that, since dawn on the previous day, Garibaldi 
and his Thousand had been fighting in the heart of 
Palermo.! A former messenger, sent off from the capital 
on the morning of the 27th, whose safe arrival might have 
changed the fate of Italy, had been arrested by the Albanian 
villagers as he passed through the street of Plana dei Greci.2 

^ De Sivo, iii. 210-212. Cronaca, 126 (Bosco's report) and 133. De 
Cesare, ii. 233. Marra Oss. 10, 11. Orsini N. A., July 1907, pp. 46-50. 
Orsini (Cenno), 15. La Masa (Sic), p. 122. Sampieri's narrative in 
TUrr's Div. 384, 385. Cuniberfi, 42, 43, is a good account, except that 
' Von Mechel ' should be read for « Cclonna.' 

" Piana dei Gyeci, 45. Reproduced in Oddo, 400, 401. 



CHAPTER XVI 

GIBILROSSA. — PALERMO ON THE EVE 

'Spread in the sight of the lion, 

Surely, we said, Is the net 
Spread but in vain, and, the snare 
Vain ; for the light is aware. 
And the common, the chainless air, 
Of his coming whom all we cry on ; 

Surely in vain is It set. 

* Surely the day is on our side, 

And heaven, and the sacred sun ; 
Surely the stars, and the bright 
Immemorial inscrutable night ; 
Yea, the darkness, because of our light, 
Is no darkness, but blooms as a bower-side 
When the winter is over and done.' 

SwiNBURNK, — Songs before Sunrise : 
Halt before Rome. 

During the few hours between midnight and dawn on the 
26th, the Thousand flung themselves down to rest, some in 
:he cafes and private houses of Misilmeri, others in the 
:hurch, which Bixio insisted upon using, in spite of the 
amentations of the inhabitants, who considered its occupa- 
:ion as an act of sacrilege which would bring bad luck on 
;he cause. 1 At three in the morning La Masa, in obedience 
;o Garibaldi's summons, arrived in the town from his camp 
Dn the surrounding hills, and at dawn a council of war was 
leld in the house where the General lodged. ^ Probably 
Defore leaving Plana, certainly before leaving Marineo, 
jaribaldi had already determined to fall on Palermo, but 
seeing that he was about to ask his friends to stake their 

' Capuzzi, 62. Ahba Not. 108, 109. Giusta, 10. 
2 La Masa {Sic), pp. li, Hi. Paolucci, Riso, 73-74. 
283 



284 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

lives on so desperate a cast, he thought good to lay before 
them the alternative of a retreat into the interior, indicating 
that his own opinion was for the bolder course. La Masa, 
rightly representing the feeling of the Sicilians, demanded 
the attack on the capital for which he had been pleading 
in his letters to the Dictator for six days past. No serious 
opposition was made : as Bixio said, ' There was no discus- 
sion, there could be none.' ^ At a quarter to six, the final 
decision having been formally taken. Garibaldi sent off a 
dispatch to Corrao, who had rallied the remnant of Pilo's 
squadre on the mountains at the other side of the Conca 
d'Oro, bidding him break into Palermo that night from the 
west. Since Garibaldi himself intended to enter it by sur- 
prise from the south-east, we may suppose that he wished 
Corrao to divert attention from the side where the serious 
attack was to be made. But Corrao started nearly twenty- 
four hours late, and consequently his movements in no 
way helped the entry of the main force.^ 

About seven in the morning, the Thousand marched out 
of Misilmeri to the other side of the low hill whereon stands 
the dismantled edifice of an Arabic-Norman castle. There, 
among the olives and vines, they encamped during the 
greater part of May 26, on the east side of the Piano della 
Stoppa, a fiat crater bottom, now drained and highly 
cultivated, but then half full of water after the recent 
rains. 3 Beyond the crater, to the north-west, rose the 
pass of Gibilrossa, more than 1000 feet high, the lowest 
point of the Grifone range that still divided them from 
the Conca d'Oro and the capital. They were to mount 
and cross those heights at sunset, by way of the little 

1 Guerzoni, il. 93, note. This passage and Sirtori, 198, 206, show that, 
In spite of La Masa's assertions, Sirtori did not on this or any other occasion 
argue in favour of a retreat into the interior. From the moment the 
expedition had been undertaken contrary to his advice, he always urged 
an advance on Palermo as the best chance. 

2 Paolucci, Riso, 73, 74, Corrao, 127, 128. 

' Giusta, 10. Times, June 8, p. 10, col. 4 (Eber's report). As Eber only 
arrived during the morning and found them camped on this spot, he 
•wrongly supposed that they had slept there all night. 



ENGLISH VISITORS 285 

white-walled convent that they could see shining amid 
cactuses and olives on the mountain-side above them. 
Once across that ridge and down in the Conca d'Oro they 
must conquer or perish. * To-morrow,' said Garibaldi to 
his friends, ' I shall enter Palermo as victor, or the world 
will never see me again among the living.' 1 

That morning, as it chanced, a carriage, with three 
British naval officers on the spree, drove out from Palermo 
by the coast road through Villabate to Misilmeri, 

' where, to their surprise,' as they afterwards reported to Admiral 
Mundy, ' they heard the great national chief had arrived from 
Parco, only a few hours before, and was then at dinner in a 
neighbouring vineyard. The General, on hearing that three 
English naval ofdcers were driving through the village, sent one 
of his attendants with a message requesting them to visit his 
head quarters. They accepted the invitation.' 

Lieutenant Wilmot and his two brother-officers found 
Garibaldi standing amid a group of men dressed for the most 
part, like their chief, in grey trousers and red flannel shirts. 
Beside him stood his son, the finely-built and good-natured 
Menotti, his hand still bound up for the wound he had 
received at Calatafimi, and there, too, was the priest, 
Pantaleo, who, as the Englishmen were told, had fought in 
the battle, crucifix in hand. Garibaldi received his visitors 
with the impressively simple courtesy that charmed alike 
the men of all races and of all ranks. He feasted them on 
fresh strawberries, spoke, in good English, of his affection 
and respect for their country, hoped that he should soon 
meet the British Admiral — presumably in Palermo — and 
related how, on his retreat over the mountain-tops to Plana 
dei Greci two days before, he had witnessed ' the beautiful 
effect produced by the royal salutes from all the ships of 
war in honour of Her Majesty's birthday.' His guests 
drank his health and that of Italy, and did not appear at 
all embarrassed by the interview. 

Almost simultaneously with the Englishmen, there had 

^ Perini, 221, 



286 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

arrived in the camp two officers of the United States war- 
ship Iroquois, one of whom gave Garibaldi a revolver which 
he carried in the fight next day. The Anglo-Saxons made 
friends with the Thousand, and drove back to Palermo 
laden with letters for the post, messages that might prove 
to be the last to many an anxious home within sight of the 
circling Alps.i 

At the very hour in the morning when these friendly 
neutrals were visiting head quarters, there arrived by the 
same route the Hungarian Eber, acting as correspondent 
for the Times, which was now strongly pro-Italian. Eber 
had made no secret among his English friends in Palermo 
of his intention to seek for a command under Garibaldi,^ 
and he came out to Misilmeri as the bearer of messages and 
information of high importance. The Central Revolu- 
tionary Committee of the capital also sent two other repre- 
sentatives to Gibilrossa in the course of the day.^ Eber gave 
Garibaldi and his staff an exact account of the location of 
the Neapolitan troops, Monreale, Parco, Porrazzi, and the 
Conca d'Oro in the direction of those places, he reported to 
be occupied by many thousands of the enemy. Near 
Palermo itself they were massed yet more thickly in 
the Quattro Venti and behind the Palace, that is on the 
northern and western outskirts of the town. But the 
indecipherable labyrinth of ancient alleys and lanes, that 
constitute the heart of Palermo, was left almost unoccupied. 
If, therefore. Garibaldi could penetrate into these recesses, 
he could call out the inhabitants to barricade the narrow 
arteries of the city, and be safe, at any rate for a while, 
from the immense forces in the exterior positions of the 
Palace and Quattro Venti. 

But how was the entry to be effected ? Palermo was a 
loaf with a soft centre but a hard crust. Eber, however, 
reported that the easiest way to force an entrance into the 
city would be by the south-eastern gates. For, strange to 

1 Mundy, 107, 108. Abba Not. iio-iii. Mem. 356. Times, June 8, 
p. 10, col. 3. Zasio, 49. Capuzzi, 65. 

- Mundy, 103. •> Conv. Guarneri. 



THE TIMES' CORRESPONDENT 287 

say, Lanza had most neglected that side which lay towards 
Gibilrossa : the easily defensible line of the lower Oreto 
river was guarded only by a weak detachment, and Eber 
described in detail the barricades erected, and the points 
occupied by a few companies of infantry and two guns 
at the south-eastern gateways of Termini and S. Antonino. 
Guided by this accurate information, Garibaldi wisely 
decided to try and storm the Porta Termini.^ 

Having formed his plan, the Dictator convoked the 
leaders of the Sicilian squadre, and asked their concurrence. 
Some few murmured that they had little or no ammunition, 
but the greater part cried out ' A Palermo ! A Palermo ! ' 
On being asked which was the most direct and secret route 
to the Porta Termini, they declared, with some exaggeration 
as the event proved, that a practicable path led down from 
the top of the Gibilrossa pass into the Conca d'Oro in the 
direction of Ciaculli. It was, therefore, decided to go by this 
route, instead of by the circuitous and public road through 
Villabate, by which the naval officers and Eber had driven 
out that morning.^ 

The enthusiasm now shown by the SiciHan chiefs, and 
their jealousy of being sent to the rear, induced Garibaldi to 
make his one mistake, destined to imperil the whole enter- 
prise. He granted a change of plan, to the effect that La 

1 Such is the information which Eber reports In the Times (June 8, p. lo, 
cols. 3,4) as having reached Garibaldi at Misilmeri ; as Times' correspon- 
dent, supposed to be a neutral, he naturally does not say in so many words 
' I brought this information.' But we know it was he who brought it. 
See Tiirr's Div. 49, 51. Tiirr said to me in conversation that it was Eber's 
information which decided Garibaldi to choose the Termini gate. Any 
other gate, added Tiirr, even the neighbouring Porta S. Antonino, would 
have been fatal. The Termini gate was the least strongly defended. 

^ Calvino [Giiardione, ii. 440). Times, June 8, p. 10, col. 4. Both 
Calvino and Eber arrived during the day (26th) and did not therefore 
know of the original council of war held in Misilmeri town before the 
dispatch was sent to Corrao at 5.45 a.m. The council which they wit- 
nessed, out in the hills, was not the occasion when the decision was taken, 
but only a meeting to hearten up the chiefs of the Sicihan squadre, and 
hear any advice they had to give. Tiirr's Div. 49, 50. La Masa {Sic), 
pp. li-lii. Paolucci, Riso, 75. Eber wrongly calls the pass of Gibilrossa 
the ' pass of Mezzagna,* see Appendix P, below. 



288 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

Masa's squadre should march in front of the North Italians. 
There was, however, to be a vanguard, consisting of the 
scouts and a body of men picked from all the companies 
of the Thousand, who with the local guides should lead 
the whole column. i 

In whatever order they marched, it was a strange under- 
taking. What with sickness, wounds, and the absence of 
the detachment gone to Corleone with the artillery. Gari- 
baldi's ' Thousand ' were some 300 fewer than when he had 
landed at Marsala. With these 750 musketeers, or more 
properly bayonet-men, with rather more than 3000 peasants 
armed some with blunderbusses and sporting guns, some 
with pikes and scythes, and with the prospect of such help 
as he could hope to get from the disarmed citizens of the 
capital, if he could ever penetrate into its streets. Garibaldi 
was setting out to attack the garrison of Palermo and the 
Conca d'Oro, variously estimated by its own chiefs at 16,000 
to 20,000 riflemen, cavalry, and artillery, not counting the 
four battalions that Von Mechel had led to Corleone. 2 

In the cool of evening on May 26, the Garibaldini 
ascended from their camping ground, near the Piano della 
Stoppa, to the monastery and pass of Gibilrossa,^ by a track 
running up the mountain-side between gigantic cactus 
hedges that gave an oriental character to the scenery. 
Halting for awhile on the soUtary platform of grey rock, 
whereon the picturesque and lonely convent hangs perched 
amid oHves, aloe, and cactus, they reached, a few hundred 

1 The number of the vanguard is variously estimated from about 
thirty to seventy-five. Tiirr's Div. 49, 50. Mem. 357. Conv. Canzio. La 
Masa (Sic), Hit. Bixio. 199. 

2 Marra Oss. 13, 14. Cava, ii. 12, 84. De Sivo, iii. 208. Tiirr's Div. 
49 50. Bixio, 198. Paolucci, Riso, 75. Mundy, 108. Bologna MS. Bixio 
says La Masa exaggerated in estimating his squadre at a higher figure than 
3000. A few hundred squadre had followed Garibaldi from Parco. 

3 F. M. 4, 5. Bixio, 199. Giusta, 10. Capuzzi, 67. Times, June 8, 
p. 10, col. 4. There is a conflict of evidence as to whether the bulk of the 
squadre were all the time up near the monastery, or whether they 
marched up thither from below with the Thousand. Very probably they 
were scattered at different points on the mountain in their different 
bands. 




GIBILROSSA MONASTERY. 
As seen froni ibe top of Gibilrossa Pass. 




GIBILROSSA MONASTERY. 

With cactus and olives. 



ON THE PASS OF GIBILROSSA 289 

yards further on, the broad moor on the top of the pass, 
where the Gibihossa monument stands to-day. It was an 
enchanted hour that threw its spell on all. The ground 
was still fragrant with the last flowers of spring, and 
there lay below their feet the evening view of the 
plain, the city, and the sea. There were the navies of the 
world riding at anchor in the bay, and there, on the opposite 
side of the Conca d'Oro, the shoulder heights of Hamilcar's 
Monte Pellegrino glowing like a furnace in the rays of sunset, 
as though the mountain itself were alight with all the fierce 
draughts of sun that it had drunk through unrecorded 
seons of time. Close at Garibaldi's feet, between him and 
the city, was spread a variegated carpet of foliage, masses 
of grey olive and of yellow-green lemon, broken by streaks 
of the dark-green orange leaf. The Cathedral and the Palace, 
the heart of the enemy's position, rose clear above the city 
roofs. But, whilst he was still gazing upon all this beauty, the 
soft, green masses below lost shape and colour, the towers and 
cupolas of Palermo were merged in undistinguished haze, 
the rosy tints upon the mountain-tops grew pale, and one 
by one his own signal fires of war leapt out instead along 
the circle of the hills, beckoning him to descend into the 
darkened plain. 

' The evening gun in the fort had been long re-echoed by 
the mountains, and the moon had risen clear and bright,' 
before the head of the column began slowly to feel its way 
down the rocky clefts of the gorge that fell from Gibilrossa 
to the plain of Palermo. ^ 

The condition of affairs in the capital and Conca d'Oro, 
when Garibaldi descended on the eventful midnight and 
dawn of May 26-7, is faithfully presented in Admiral 
Mundy's Journal for the two days preceding the crisis. On 
May 25, having observed several Neapolitan vessels take 
up positions with the apparent object of being ready to 
bombard the sea- front, the British Admiral went up town to 
find Lanza at the Palace. There, in the spacious chambers 

* Times, June 8, p. lo, cols. 4, 5. 



290 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

overlooking the city and the sea beyond, where the greatest 
and most beloved, but not the wisest, of English Admirals 
had given the Bourbon royalties very different advice from 
that now proffered by the excellent Mundy, the modem 
representative of Britain's power along the coasts of the 
world expostulated with the King's alter ego against beginning 
a bombardment which was not strictly part of any mihtary 
operation. 

' The reply of General Lanza,' continues the Admiral, ' was 
frank and decisive. . . . He entertained a firm hope that Palermo 
would not become the scene of a sanguinary civil struggle, and 
aU his endeavours were directed to remove from its waUs the 
calamities of war. He should oppose the foreign invasion out- 
side the city ; in fact, he had yesterday dislodged the band of 
Garibaldi from their strong position at El Parco, seven miles 
from Palermo, and had pursued them to the summit of the 
mountains of Plana dei Greci. If, however, in spite of his 
endeavours, the rebels should make the city rise, the fire of the 
artillery by sea and land would concur with the troops in the 
repression of the revolt. . . . When General Lanza had finished 
his address I rose to depart, thanking him for his candid state- 
ment, but, at the same time, remarking that there was a vast 
difference between the indiscriminate destruction of the edifices 
of a great city, and the use of artillery against a people in revolt. 
He then informed me that two Piedmontese prisoners i had been 
brought to the guard-house in the morning, who, though dressed 
as private soldiers, were evidently gentlemen. I asked him to 
spare their lives, which he said he would do. 

' During this interview Signer Maniscalco [the Police Minister] 
and Colonel Polizzi entered into the discussion, with a view of 
justifying the resolutions which had been so clearly expounded 
by the Royal Commissioner. Unfortunately, in the heat of 
argument the former asked Mr. Goodwin [the British Consul] 
if he did not think a population deserved to be annihilated, 
should they rise up in insurrection against the constituted 
authorities. To this unexpected and ill-timed demand Her 
Majesty's Consul indignantly replied that he could not have 
supposed such a question would have been put to him; but that, 
as Signer Maniscalco had chosen to do so, he had no hesitation 

* Of the Thousand, captured during the retreat from Parco. 



ADMIRAL MUNDY'S DRIVE 291 

in saying that when a people were tyrannised over they had 
an inherent right to take up arms, and to fight against 
their oppressors. . . .' 

On the afternoon of May 26, while Garibaldi was between 
Misilmeri and Gibilrossa, Admiral Mundy and Mr. Goodwin 
went for a drive in the Conca d'Oro, and visited a convent, 
where Mundy was surprised to hear such antiquated people 
as the monks profess themselves ardently on the side of the 
revolution. Shortly afterwards, at La Grazia, the carriage 
was held up by some members of the squadre, whose appear- 
ance did not edify the Admiral, although his nationality 
secured him their respect. On his way back, he writes : — 

' On the outskirts of the city I gained admission into a 
mansion once occupied by the Moorish Governors of Sicily,^ 
from the lofty turrets of which I witnessed the burning of 
several of the country palaces of the nobility who were supposed 
by the soldiery to be hostile to the Royal cause.^ In whichever 
direction I looked over this vast and richly-cultivated plain, the 
smoke of ruins and devastation presented itself to my view, 
while the constant report of musketry and the distant sound of 
cannon showed that armed men were in collision on the slopes 
of the hills.' 

On his return through the streets of Palermo, the 
Admiral saw with indignation a procession of working men, 
handcuffed and led to prison by the police, because they 
had visited the British ships on their Saturday holiday that 
afternoon. They had returned with nothing more com- 
promising about their persons than tobacco and hard biscuit ; 
but the fact that they had visited the floating fortresses of 
freedom was held to be crime enough. 

Having returned to his flag-ship. Admiral Mundy heard 
from Lieutenant Wilmot how he had unexpectedly found 

1 The Admiral may refer either to La Favara, near Brancaccio, or 
to La Zisa or La Cuba, nearer to the town and Royal Palace. 

2 In Mr. Goodwin's Political Journal of this week {Palermo MSS., Br. 
Cons. Papers) we read that the soldiers sacked the villas of the nobility, 
e.g., the Villa Marutta at Passo Rigano, under pretence of searching for 
arms. 

V 2 



292 G-^RIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

"himself in Garibaldi's camp that mo rni ng. Clearly. Gari- 
baldi was not so far oS as Lanza had supposed. In the 
evening, about the time that the Thonsand were preparing 
to descend from the pass of Gibilrossa, a note was handed 
to the Admiral in his cabin, just before he tmned in. It 
was from 3-1 English resident in the city. 

* Dear Sir,' it ran, " I hear that a rising will take place at two 
o'clock to-morrow raoming, at which hour, or soon after. Gari- 
baldi will be near Porta Sant' Anton in o, through which you 
went out this afternoon, prepared to force his way iato the city 

with the tayonet/ ^ 

The momenions secret, known to British residents and 
British authorities, was common property to all the 
active liberals of PalerniD. A Sicilian gentleman - has 
related to me the emotions which thai night disturbed the 
home of his father, Signor Tedaldi, in the beautiful Quattro 
Cantoni, at the very cenrre :; the city. To the grief and 
indignation of his younger brother, it was decided that 
only the father and the two elder boys should fight next day. 
The clothes which they were to wear were laid out in readniess, 
consisting of velveteen shooting jackets and highland caps. 
These were decorated "^th tricolour ribbons and cockades, 
sacred svmbols which their mother had prepared with great 
difficulty, gathering bits of red, green, and white out of her 
own hats, for no one dared ask for the forbidden colours 
openiv in the shops. They had no weapons, for the capiiii 
had been repeatedly searched for arms, but they expected 
to be able to obtain them from the Garibaldini. Through 
the shutters they could see the pohce ia the square below, 
and wondered how they would be able to get out of the house 
next dav- They sat up late, listening to stray shots in 
the Conca d'Oro, such as they had heard every night for the 
past m.onth, and wonderin.g if they heralded his coming. 

- Ma.iJy, 9S— 109. 

- Ca-rsa. TedaZdi. Cokrod Cav. Francesco Tedaldi, for many years past 
rssidfiEit cEi tse maml-atiri In iS5-D he did Ms fnli patriotic dtity not only 
ia the £gii1±ig at Palsniio, bat at Milazzo and acrt^ss the rrsits. 



EXPECTATION IN PALER^^IO 293 

At last, the boys were sent to bed for a few honrs' sleep, 
while the father sat np to watch for dawn and GaiibaldL 

In the great Vicaria gaol, hundreds of political prisoners 
had, on the morning of the 26th, been horrified by the oScial 
news of Garibaldi's flight to Corleone, but, on :':ir s^rir 
evening, a note was smuggled in among them bearing the 
words, ' To-morrow Garibaldi will enter Palermo.' 1 

That a secret so generally known was so well kept reflects 
credit, as Garibaldi said, on the secrecy and faithfolness of 
the Sicilian people,^ It seemed, indeed, as if the anthorities 
were almost the only pecple completely ignorant of the 
intended attack, and of the fact that Garibaldi had doubled 
back to the neighbourhood of Misilmeri. As late as 12.30 
noon on the 26th, Lanza telegraphed to General Bonanno 
at Monreale, ' Garibaldi's band is retiring in rout throogh 
the district of Corleone. He is closely followed.' ^ The 
same day a proclamation to the Sicilians was issued to the 
same effect, but the pubhc now no longer believed in the 
defeat of the ' Filibusters/ and scornfully tore the announce- 
ment off the walls.- Signor Delia Cerda tells me that, when 
his mother was reading this procLamaTi:- a- a Mend's 
house, Cav. Paolo Amari said to her, 'Si:~ riiii-g that- 
To-morrow Garibaldi wiH be in Palermo.' ' Even the Nea- 
poHtan officers, though they were not in the secret, felt by 
no means at their ease. Many had sent their families and 
goods back to Naples,^ and Colonel Fileno Briganti, the same 
who was shortly afterwards, as General, murdered by his 
own troops in Calabria, actually consigned his furniture to 
the care of his Liberal friends, the Delia Cerda family, 

' Brancacdo, 189. 

' Mem. 356. C-aivino {Guardiom, a. 440). 

' Printed in the Giom. O^. Sic, Jnne o. 1S60. Frzn z crrv ir z:- :- 
writing of ilaniscalco. found in the Palace of Ministers. 

* Stamp. Off.^ Bcdletirto, i^y 26. La Mas* (5:.- \ r j ; . :— ?- : I: : : 
' Con, DeOa Cerda, See Mexgkimi, $^ c- t;t 1 

May 26. 

* Times, Jnne i, letter frc— Jilerr:!: May 25. ' The Neaixditaiis are 
not very confident about their %-irtc—-. YesTeriiv r-; ^ r ' - ;;: 
Naples carr\-i:ig o£ fcgitives and their 
boat was seen passing full ol fnmitnre.' 



5^- 



294 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

sending it across in cart-loads from the Castellamare to their 
house opposite, as though a patriot's roof were a safer shelter 
in Palermo than the chief Neapolitan fortress, of which he 
was himself at that time commandant. i 

At headquarters in the Royal Palace, the energetic 
Police Minister, Maniscalco, together with General Bartolo 
Marro, and other officers, urged Lanza to take precautions 
against the rebels in the direction of Gibilrossa, but the 
replies of the alter ego were evasive or contemptuous. 
Even when a man came post-haste from the hil Is, announc- 
ing that he himself had seen the red-shirts, and that they 
were about to attack Palermo, he remained unmoved. 
When informed that the city was on the eve of insurrec- 
tion, he would only repeat what he had told Admiral 
Mundy, that if there was a rising, he would order a bom- 
bardment. Since he took no measures to strengthen the 
slender guard on the line of the Oreto and at the Termini 
and S. Antonino gates, we may presume that, in spite of all 
warnings, he continued under the spell of his illusions until 
the rude awakening on the dawn of Sunday, May 27.- 

1 Conv. Delia Cerda. De Sivo, iii. 218. 

2 De Sivo, iii. 213-215. Cava, ii. 86. The situation is well rendered 
in a cartoon issued by the liberated press a few weeks later, in which 
Lanza is represented as presiding over a peep-show at the windows of 
which his soldiers are looking, while a Palermitan behind winks at a 
street boy, and the boy makes ' a vulgar, odious sign ' at the alter ego. 
Lanza is saying, ' Walk up, gentlemen ! Here are the Filibusters of the 
Mediterranean, led by Garibaldi, flying towards Plana. Further on you 
can see them, routed at Plana, flying to Corleone.' A bystander says, 
' Your show is a swindle. I see nothing of the sort. I see Garibaldi 
entering Palermo victoriously at your heels.' Forbice, June 14, i860. 



CHAPTER XVII 



THE TAKING OF PALERMO 1 

* Chi 6 cestui che cavalca glorioso 
In fra i lampi del ferro e del fuoco, 
Bello come nel ciel proceiloso 
II sereno Orione compar ? 

Ei si noma, e a suoi cento dier loco 
Le migliaia da i re congiurate : 
Ei si noma, e citta folgorate 
Su le ardenti mine pugnar.' 

Carducci. — Sicilia e la Rivoluzione. 

'Who is this riding on in his might 
As calm amid war's flash and sheen 
As oft in tempestuous night 
Orion in glory is seen ? 

Cry his name, and whole armies shall fear it 
And fly from his hundreds afar : 
While the cities they blasted shall hear it 
And rise on red ruins to war.' 

A WELL-MADE road now winds down the mountain-side 
from the Garibaldi monument on Gibilrossa Pass, into 
the plain near Ciaculli. But in i860 there was no better 
means of descent than a straight, precipitous foot-track, 
which during the first and steepest part of the decline 
followed a dried torrent-bed along a stony gorge. Garibaldi's 
men cHmbed down this path, of which the gloomy grandeur, 
revealed, rather than reUeved by the moonlight, put some 
of them in mind of the way by which Dante passed from 
the upper to the lower circles of his Inferno. 2 When the 
level of the plain was reached about midnight, the rugged 
track continued towards Ciaculli, along a stream bed 
between olive-groves, of which the low walls now bear 

1 See Map IV. end of book, both parts. 

2 Rome MS. Savi. 

295 



296 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

the inscription Discesa del Milk — ' The descent of the 
Thousand.' 1 

Among these oUves, far from the enemy or any human 
habitation, took place the first misadventure of the night. 
One of the few horses in the column began playing tricks, 
a cry of ' cavalry ' was raised, and a panic extended to 
a greater or less degree along the darkened line. Some 
muskets were let off, whereupon all the dogs of the Conca 
d'Oro invoked one another with frantic bowlings. Fortun- 
ately such alarms had been so common for every night 
of late that the noise conveyed no warning to the Neapolitan 
generals in the Palace. Garibaldi restored order and the 
march was resumed, ^ 

Once more they advanced through the silence of the 
groves, each man wrapped in his reflexions, or listening 
keenly for sounds of war from Palermo. The tinkling 
of a far distant piano, played who knows why at that dead 
hour, came fitfully down the breeze. On the Monte Grifone 
to their left, and on Gibilrossa behind them, the watch- 
fires blazed bright, fed by men whom Garibaldi had left 
for the purpose, lest the Neapolitans, not seeing the accus- 
tomed nightly signals, should divine that the rebels were 
descending into the plain. ^ 

Passing the hamlet of CiacuUi, they approached the 
half-ruined palace, called La Favara or the Castello di 
Mare Dolce, beside its well-watered garden of lemons, 
where once the Saracen lords of Sicily, and after them the 
great Emperor Frederic II, had taken their learned pleasure. 
Here, in the maze of paths and fruit-groves, the squadre lost 
their way and fresh confusions followed. The leaders of 
the various local bands were not military men ; indeed, one 
of them, named Rotolo, placed in command of the front 
division of the squadre that night, was a parish priest 

1 See Appendix P. The Route from Gibilrossa to Palermo. 

2 Times, June 8, p. lo, col. 5. Abba Not. 113-115. Bixio, 199. Rome 
MS. Savi. Perini, 226-228. Giusta, 10. 

3 Abba, 167, 168. Times, June 8, p. 10, col. 4. Rome MS. Savi. Mem. 
357. Giusta, 10. 



THE NIGHT MARCH 297 

from a village in the interior, whence he had led one hundred 
men to the camp at Gibilrossa. Rotolo, though by no means 
lacking in courage, had vainly pleaded to Sirtori and 
Garibaldi that his inexperience should disqualify him 
from marching at the head of his fellow-countrymen. 
La Masa himself, the chief of the united bands, now began 
to show his incapacity as shepherd of his unruly flock. 
Bixio, after swearing with his accustomed energy at the 
helpless leader, induced the Dictator to permit Carini, 
the Sicilian in command of one of the two battalions of 
the Thousand, to go and restore order among the squadre, 
which he succeeded in doing after a fashion with the help 
of Father Pantaleo.i 

From La Favara, the column appears to have advanced 
in two or more divisions, some passing by the road through 
Brancaccio,2 others across country to the main road at 
Settecannoli.3 All united again at the junction of the two 
roads, known as the bivio delta Scajfa, where a few of 
the enemy's outposts were dislodged from a mill.* 

The first line of the Neapolitan defences lay along the 
banks of the lower Oreto from the cemetery above Guadagna 
down to the bridges near the hivio delta Scajfa ^ and at 
these bridges a body of some strength was posted.^ The 
Ponte deir Ammiraglio, a magnificent relic of Norman- 
Arabic architecture built early in the twelfth century by 
King Roger's great Admiral, George Antiochenus, was 

^ See Appendix P. for the route. Paolucci, Riso, 75-77 ; Conv. Rotolo. 
Bixio, 199 {Bixio MS. for unexpurgated version). O. B.'s La Masa, 365, 
366. Times, June 8, p. 10, col. 5. 

2 Conv. Arma/orte and Conv. Campo, speaking of the way they them- 
selves went. 

^ Paolucci, Riso, 78. Conv. Rotolo, speaking of the way he led his 
men. He says they halted at Favara and then turned off to the right 
till they got into the road at Settecannoli. The halt at Favara is con- 
firmed by Campo, 117. 

* Menghini, 60. Giusta, 10. V. M. 5. 

^ V. M. 5. Lorenzo. Giusta, 10. 

^ Neapolitan authorities differ as to the size of the force posted at 
the bridges. Cava, ii., p. 86, says a battalion of the 6th line under 
Major Vincenzo d'Aiubrosio ; De Sivo, ii. 216, says only 260 men of 
the 2nd Cacciatori under Captain Folio, as Franci, i. 54, also says. 



298 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

a place associated in the minds of the natives with the 
ghosts of the ' unfortunate ' victims of pubhc justice, 
whose cemetery lay close at hand, and who were, strangely 
enough, supposed to be beneficent to passers-by .1 The 
arches of this ancient bridge span what is now the dry 
course of the old Oreto. A few yards farther on the modern 
Ponte delle Teste crosses the waters of the actual river. 
The Neapolitans, massed on and around the Ponte dell' 
Ammiraglio, and in the neighbouring buildings, were ready 
to receive most warmly the head of the column as it 
approached from the hivio delta Scajfa. For although 
Garibaldi had succeeded in surprising Lanza strategically, 
the tactical surprise had failed altogether, owing to Rotolo's 
squadre, who, as they passed through Settecannoli a few 
minutes before, had shouted and let off their guns in the 
air at the prospect of approaching battle. ^ 

When therefore the Hungarian Tiikory, leading on the 
two or three score picked men of the Thousand who formed 
the vanguard, dashed against the Ponte dell' Ammiraglio, 
they were received by such a volley as checked their advance. 
A panic instantly seized the 3000 squadre behind them, 
and the Sicilian peasants bolted into the vineyards and 
fruit-groves on either side of the road. For a few critical 
minutes a wide gap was left between the small body under 
Tiikory who still held their ground in front of the bridge, 
exposed to a terrible fire, and the remainder of the Thousand 
in the rear of the now rapidly dissolving column. ^ 

A minute's hesitation in the rearguard might have 
been fatal. ' Avanti, Cacciatori ! avanti ! Entrafe nel 
centro ! ' cried Garibaldi. (' Forward ! Into the heart 
of the town ! ') * Thus incited, the Genoese Carabineers 
and the two leading companies of Bixio's battalion came 
tearing along the road from the bivio delta Scajfa, between 

1 F. M. 21. De Cesave, li. 231. 

2 Conv. Rotolo. Paolucci, Riso, 78. Times, June 8, p. 10, col. 5. 
Tiirr's Div. 51, 52. La Masa {Sic), liii. 

^ Campo Conv. Paolucci, Riso, 78. Times, June 8, p. 10, col. 5. 
Tiiyy's Div. 52. Perini, 231, 232. 
* Conv. Canzio. 




PONTE DELL' AMPv-IIRAGLIO. 
Behind the pine tree is seen an Arab water tower, a familiar sight in the Conca d'Or 




THE FIERA VECCHIA. 

With the figure of Palermo, an old man with a snake sucking his breast, removed by the 
police in 1849 as seditious, and restored in 1860 after the Revolution. 



AT THE PONTE DELL' AMMIRAGLIO 299 

the garden walls over which the squadre had so nimbly 
disappeared. In front of them the ghostlike bulwarks 
of the ancient bridge loomed through the grey twilight 
of dawn, spitting fire at them as they advanced. Joined 
with Tiikory's vanguard and a number of Sicilians who 
had not taken shelter with the rest, the newcomers hurled 
themselves on the enemy, who after a fierce struggle turned 
and fled for Palermo. A body of cavalry, who had come down 
as far as the Ponte dell' Ammiraglio, retired without charging. 
The Ponte delle Teste was next carried, and the line of 
the Oreto passed. Domenico Piva, who ten years before 
had helped Garibaldi to warp out the boats at Cesenatico,i 
was the first officer across the river, if it was not Bixio 
himself. Rocca della "Russa of Mount Eryx and two other 
Sicilians lay dead or dying by the old bridge, and several 
of the Thousand had fallen. ^ 

From the Oreto to the Porta Termini stretches nearly 
a mile of suburban road, along which the Thousand hastened 
at full speed. s For a short while the General and the 
mounted officers of the staff, together with a few Sicilians 
of the Thousand remained behind to drive the squadre 
out of the gardens where they had taken refuge, and induce 
them to cross the bridges which were still exposed to a 
heavy cross fire from the direction of Guadagna.* 

The side of Palermo which the Thousand were approach- 
ing from the bridges, was not, like the rest of the city, 
protected by its walls and bastions, for a row of houses 
had been built along the outer side of the fortifications. 
But as these houses were in a continuous line, an entry 
en masse could be effected only through the Porta S. Antonino 
or the Porta Termini. There was no longer any gate 
at the Porta Termini, but the Neapolitans had erected 

^ Trevelyan's Gar. Rome, 285, 286. 

2 Cava, ii. 86. Risorg. anno ii., i. 125. Bixio, 200. Conv. Canzio 
Franci, i. 54, 55. Menghini, 429, 430. Abba Not. 115, 116. Rome MS. 
Savi. Paolucci, Riso, 78. La Masa (Sic), liv. (note). 

^ Now the Corso dei Mille. 

* Tim^s, June 8, p. 10, col. 5. Paolucci, Riso, 79. Calvino {Grtardione, 
ii. 441, 442). 



300 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

an unusually high barricade effectively blocking the street, 
near to the place where the gate had once stood. This 
obstacle, though feebly defended, was in itself physically 
impassable, and therefore sufficed to bring the charge of the 
Thousand to a stand, while Bixio and others flung them- 
selves against it and began pulling it to the ground. So 
long as this work continued the Neapolitan riflemen and 
their two cannon posted outside the Porta S. Antonino 
in front of the church of that name, fired down the broad, 
straight stradone} into the left flank of the Thousand, 
held up in front of the Porta Termini barricade. From 
the opposite direction a Neapolitan war vessel fired up 
the stradone from the sea. Here fell Benedetto Cairoli — 
yet destined to be the only one of five brothers to survive 
the wars of liberation — and Canzio of Genoa, Garibaldi's 
future son-in-law. Here the brave Hungarian, Tiikory, 
who had led the vanguard, fell wounded to death. 

At this critical moment. Garibaldi, having done his 
share of rallying the squadre, galloped up to the Porta 
Termini, still crying aloud, ' Avanti ! Avanti ! Entrate 
nel centro ! ' Then the high barricade yielded to the fury 
of Bixio, undeterred by a bullet in his breast. Nullo of 
Bergamo was the first man to enter the city, and after him 
the tide of war surged over the fallen barrier. A space 
was cleared to enable Garibaldi to ride his horse through 
the ruins, and all that remained of the Thousand, with 
their chief aloft in the midst of them, roared down the 
narrow street between the medieval palaces and over- 
hanging balconies of Palermo. ^ 

Meanwhile the squadre were following up. At the 
stradone they came to a halt, afraid to pass over to the 
Porta Termini across the open road, which they saw slippery 

1 Now the Via Lincoln. 

- The street they came down, in which the Porta Termini had once 
stood, is now called the Via Garibaldi. Conv. Canzio. Conv. Turr. 
Bixio, 190, 200. Conv. Campo. Calvino {Guardione, ii. 441, 442). 
THrr's Div. 52. Menghini, 430 (Canzio's diary). Risorg. anno ii., I. 
pp. 123, 124. Abba Not. 117. V. M. iS. Abba's Bixio, 97-98. Mondo 
Illustrato, i860, no. i, p. 23. Zasio, 52, 53. 



IN THE FIERA VECCHIA 301 

with the blood of the Thousand and swept by two cross 
fires from S. Antonino and from the sea. Eber and several 
of the Thousand who had been left to bring them into 
the city had a hard task to accomplish. The only way 
was to show them how badly the Neapohtans were in fact 
shooting. For this purpose Francesco Carbone, a Genoese 
lad of seventeen, planted a chair, with a tricolour flag 
floating above it, in the middle of the stradone, and himself 
sat down on it amid the storm of ill-directed missiles. 
' The thing took at last decidedly,' wrote Eber ; first 
by ones and twos, then in larger bodies the squadre crossed 
the danger zone, some even halting in the middle of the road 
to fire off their muskets. Finally, a barricade was erected 
across the stradone to cover the entrance for further bands 
from the mountains, of whom many penetrated into the 
capital by this way in the course of the following days. 
These undrilled peasants learnt to behave with ever increas- 
ing courage during the street fighting that followed. Eber 
wrote that they reminded him of the Bashi-Bazouks, 
because they ' can be led on after the first unpleasant sensa- 
tion has passed away, especially when they see that it is 
not all shots that kill or wound.' 1 

Garibaldi made no halt until he reached the Fiera 
Vecchia, ' the ancient market,' a Httle, triangular space 
at the end of the long, straight street by which he had 
entered the town. Of unknown antiquity, it is the heart 
of the popular quarter of Palermo. In it commenced the 
revolution of January 1848, the spark that lighted the 
European conflagration of that year.^ In the centre of 
it stands a fountain, adorned by a statuette of the genius 
of Palermo — an old man feeding a snake at his breast, 
which was popularly held to represent the Sicilian capital 
feeding its foreign conquerors, as it had done through 
all the ages. In 1849 the too symbolic image had been 

1 Times, June 8, p. lo, col. 5. Conv. Eng. Forbes, 45, 46. PietrO' 
ganzili, ii. 268. 

2 The Fiera Vecchia is now called the Piazza della Rivoluzione. 



302 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

removed as seditious by the police ; it was restored in 
June i860, and stands there to-day. [Illustration, p. 298.) 

Here, then, in the Fiera Vecchia, at about four in 
the morning, Garibaldi first drew rein, and began at once 
to organise the occupation of the city. Around him 
as he sat giving his orders, swayed a crowd of unarmed 
Palermitans, so dense that there was no room to move, 
all in the wildest excitement, struggling to get near and 
kiss the hand or knee of the impassive horseman, and 
yelling like maniacs * Viva la Talia e Garihardi amicu I ' 1 
In the midst of all this, Garibaldi embraced Bixio, pointing 
him out to the ecstatic gratitude of the populace, as the 
hero of the day. Bixio was at the moment near fainting 
with pain and loss of blood, for he had just cut out with 
his own Spartan hands the bullet that he had received 
in his breast at the Porta Termini. He had no thought of 
retiring yet from the fight .2 

From the Fiera Vecchia, the Thousand, ceasing to act 
as a regiment, went out in small parties in every direction 
through the narrow labyrinths of the great city, to rouse 
the inhabitants and expel the enemy.^ During the three 
days' fighting that ensued, most of the important, though 
not all, the operations of war were performed either 
by small parties of a dozen or more North Italians, or 
else by bodies of squadre and citizens under their leader- 
ship. To be one of the Thousand was to be recognised 
as the commander by any stray group of men in any part 
of the city, and on any one of the countless barricades. 

On their first scattering through the town from the 
Fiera Vecchia, the Thousand complained of empty streets 

1 ' Long live La Talia ' (Italia) ' and friend Garibaldi.' V. M. 25, 
Some of the more ignorant Sicilians thought ' Talia ' was a princess, 
married to Garibaldi. At least so the Thousand were led to believe, 
though it has since been denied by some Sicilians. Belloni, 84. De 
Cesare, ii. 228. Pietvaganzili, ii. 190. For the scene in the Fiera 
Vecchia see Calvino {Guardione, ii. 442). Times, June 8, p. 10, col. 5. 
Sampo, Lettera, 14, 15. 

- Abba's Bixio, 97, 98. Bixio, 194. 

5 Nievo, 355. 



THE BOMBARDMENt BEGINS 303 

and of people watching timidly from behind shutters. 
The citizens had no firearms, and they had not forgotten 
the failure of April 4.1 But as the certainty of Garibaldi's 
presence in Palermo gained ground, the populace every- 
where came out in swarms, men, women, and children, to 
welcome and aid their deliverers. They had nothing in their 
hands but swords, knives, sticks, or bars of iron, but they 
were bursting with noise and fury, and inspired by a fitful 
activity and daring. Men rushed up the campanili and 
fell to beating the toscin on all the bells of the town, with 
hammers since the clappers had been carried off by the 
police. The rural squadre, as they poured into the streets, 
fired off their guns, indifferently whether at the enemy or 
in the air.^ Palermo with its 160,000 inhabitants and 
4000 friendly invaders clashed and roared and shrieked 
and banged like the devil's kitchen, while the 20,000 
foreign troops on the outskirts rained shell and heated 
shot into the centre, from the Palace at one end and from 
the Castellamare and the fleet at the other, setting whole 
streets on fire and killing and wounding men, women, 
and children.^ 

It had been Lanza's predetermined poHcy, that, if the city 
rose, he would reduce it to submission by bombardment, in- 
stead of using every effort to occupy it with his immense 
forces of infantry. Against this expressed intention Admiral 
Mundy had protested beforehand, in the interest alike of 
humanity and of the great quantity of British property in the 
town.^ But fortunately for Garibaldi, this cowardly and in- 
active programme was strictly adhered to.^ In the spirit of 
their leader, the troops stationed near the Palace began 
burning and sacking houses, and murdering whole families, 

1 Conv. Canzio. Conv. Campo. Mem. 358. Abba Not. 120. Abba's 
Btxio, 98. Belloni, 86. 

2 Lorenzo. Giusta, 11. Mem. 358. Times, June 8, p. 10, col. 5, 
and June 9, p. 9, col. i. 

3 Mundy, 111-115. Br. Pari. Papers, 13, p. 2. Br. Cons., Papers sub. 
May 27 and 28 ; Times, June 8, p. 10, col. 5. 

* Mundy, 81-83, 88-91, 98-103. De Sivo, iii. 215. 

* De Sivo, iii. 218. 



304 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

both in the Albergheria within and in the suburbs without 
the gates, instead of advancing into the heart of the city 
and crushing the invaders before barricades had time to 
spring up. The desecration and robbery of churches and 
convents was so large a part of the activity of the 
NeapoUtans in these days, that the devotion of the clergy 
and superstitious populace to the well-behaved Garibaldini 
became stronger than ever.i ' Thus/ wrote Captain 
Tommaso Cava of the Neapolitan General Staff, ' after 
two hours of bombardment, and several more of plunder 
and arson. General Lanza thought he had done enough, 
and became almost entirely inactive, while Garibaldi 
occupied all the points which he most required.' 2 

The Dictator himself, at the head of one of the small groups 
into which his Thousand were now divided, advanced from 
the Fiera Vecchia into the centre of the town in the direction 
of the Quattro Cantoni, the crossing place of the two streets 
of Spanish origin, the Toledo and the Macqueda, each a mile 
long, which cut Palermo into four symmetrical quarters. 
As the invaders drew near, the Tedaldi family ^ from 

1 Br. Pari. Papers, 19, p. i. Admiral Mundy, June 3, writes : — 
' A whole district, 1000 yards in length by 100 wide, is in ashes ; families 
have been burnt alive with the buildings : while the atrocities of the 
Royal troops have been frightful. . . . The conduct of General Garibaldi 
both during the hostilities and since their suspension, has been noble 
and generous.' In the Morning Post, June 26, p. 5, col. 4, the corre- 
spondent writes on June 6 from Palermo that in the Albergheria quarter 
' a part of the town exclusively inhabited by the poorest classes, not even 
a single house is left standing, and one may fairly calculate the number 
of houses at about 200. These houses were not destroyed by the bombs 
or other projectiles, but by the soldiers themselves, who first entered and 
completely sacked them, and on leaving set fire to them, and heaven 
knows in each they could have found little more than the value of 2s. 
or 3s.' Elliot (p. 38) tells us that the beaten army on its disgraceful 
return to the mainland held auctions of the spoil of the island whence 
they had been driven. See also Bixio, 198, 202. Brancaccio, 216, 225 ; 
Pietraganzili, ii. 281, 282 ; V. M. 8, 9, 28 ; Cava, ii. 87. Tilrr's Div. 386 
(doc. 18, detailed evidence by Swiss Agent) ; Times, June 28, p. 9, col. 4 ; 
Durand-Braget, 45-47. 

2 Cava, ii. 87. There was a temporary lull in the bombardment 
about 8 a.m. on the 27th, Mundy, iii. 

3 See p. 292, above. 



IN THE HEART OF THE CITY 305 

behind the shutters of their house in the Quattro Cantoni, 
saw the sentinels below bolt up the Toledo for the Palace. 
Thus set free, the father and two elder boys descended 
unarmed into the streets, as so many of their fellow-citizens 
were doing at that hour, to seek for weapons and for allies. 
They soon met one of the Thousand, Paolo Scarpa, almost 
unconscious from prolonged exposure and want of sleep. 
They helped him into their house, where he dropped on 
a bed and slept where he fell. When the servant tried 
to remove his clothes, which he had not taken off since 
Marsala, they fell to pieces. Armed with his musket, 
the Tedaldi went out again to the fight. When Scarpa 
awoke many hours later, he was in despair at the dis- 
appearance of his weapon, but by that time his hosts were 
able to supply him with another musket procured on a 
barricade from one of the squadre.^ 

Meanwhile Garibaldi, with a few followers, had occupied 
the neighbouring Piazza Bologni, from which important 
position Landi of Calatafimi hastily fled with his troops 
towards the Royal Palace.^ The Dictator took up his 
quarters for a couple of hours in the courtyard of the 
Villafranca Palace, on the Piazza Bologni. It was noticed 
that even at that moment he insisted on unsaddling his 
horse himself, according to his custom. As he placed the 
saddle on the ground, a pistol in the holster went off and 
missed him so closely that it carried off a piece of his trousers. 
There was a momentary cry of ' He is assassinated.' ^ 

While the Dictator was still in the Piazza Bologni, he 
became aware of Bixio, staggering for loss of blood from 
his wound, but all in a rage because the citizens had not 
yet come out in sufficient numbers in that part of the town. 
He was crying out that they would certainly all be killed in 
a couple of hours since the city would not rise, and that for 

^ Conv. Tedaldi. 

* De Cesare, ii. 231, 322. Nievo, 355. 

^ Calvino {Guardione, ii. 443). Campo Letfera, 15. Cremona, 30. 
Abba Not. 119, 200. Mem. 358. The two latter authorities show that 
it was Garibaldi's own pistol and not that of his son Menotti that went off. 

X 



3o6 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

his part he would lead any twenty men who would follow 
him to attack the headquarters at the Royal Palace. 
Garibaldi countermanded the feverish plan, calmed his 
worthy lieutenant and finally ordered him off to have 
his wounds dressed, as he should have done several hours 
before. Once in bed, Bixio was unable to leave it during the 
next three days of battle, during which the absence of 
the dreaded, indefatigable man was a relief alike to friend 
and foe.i 

From the Piazza Bologni the Dictator recrossed the 
Via Macqueda to the Piazza Pretorio, or municipal square 
of the capital, and fixed his head quarters here during the 
next three weeks. He had nominated a General Committee 
of leading Palermitans to govern the town, subdivided 
into five Committees of War, Provisions, Interior, Finance, 
and, last but not least, Barricades. ^ With these, his 
State Secretary Crispi carried on the Dictatorial government 
in the Pretorio or municipal building, where Garibaldi 
also occasionally worked, and took his modicum of sleep. 
But he spent most of the days of battle sitting on the 
steps of the great fountain in the square below, among the 
statues with which it is decorated, between heaps of flowers 
and fruit brought to him by the people. ^ The enemy soon 
discovered his whereabouts and aimed the bombardment 
specially at the Piazza Pretorio. Although every building on 
the square and in its neighbourhood suffered greater or less 
damage, the Municipality itself was strangely intact. Simi- 
larly, though many persons in the square were hit, Garibaldi 
had his usual luck.* The populace cried out on a miracle. 
At some hazard to themselves they would stand in crowds 
gazing at him as he sat on the steps, as composed as one 
of the statues, paying no attention to the shells and 
abstractedly twirling round and round the string of a little 
whip which he held in his hand. The Palermitans whispered 
to each other in awe-struck tones ' Caccia le bombe ' (' He 

1 Abba Not. 120. Abba's Bixio, 98, 99. Bixio, 200. ^ y.M. 5. 

3 Calvino {Guardione, ii. 443). Pietraganzili, ii. 268. 
■* Mtindy, 128. Morning Post, June 26, p. 5, col. 4. 




„ O :S 






GARIBALDI AT THE FOUNTAIN 



307 



is keeping off the shells '), beheving the whip to be a charm 
which he thus set in action. ^ In habits of thought and 
imagination the modem Palermitans had much in common 
with those ancient peoples of the Mediterranean for whose 
pagan souls the followers of Christ and Mohammed strove 
with the sword. When they saw sitting before them a stranger 
so beautiful, so kind, so strong to deHver and to slay, 
they felt as their remote ancestors felt when some god or 
hero was thought to have become the guest of man. And 
so during these days the belief became very general and 
profound that the Liberator was related to Santa Rosalia, 
the patroness of Palermo, who doubtless protected her 
kinsman in battle. For all agreed that a hero named 
Garibaldi must needs be descended from the famous Sini- 
haldi, Santa Rosalia's father. So they looked on him 
and took fresh courage.^ 

Of many scores of street fights that raged throughout the 
city, the most important and the fiercest of all was the 
contest for the Toledo — the broad, straight, level street which 
connected the Neapolitan head quarters at the Palace with 
the centre of the town and thence with the sea. At the 
marine end of the Toledo the squadre, under the leader- 
ship of one of the Thousand, captured the Porta FeHce 
under a hot fire. But that did not prevent the warships 
from firing through its arch up the whole length of the town.^ 
An immense cloth was therefore stretched across the 
Quattro Cantoni, as had been done under similar circum- 
stances in 1848, to prevent the Palace and fleet from 
communicating by signals, and to hide from the ships 
the fighting in the upper part of the Toledo.* For it was 
there that the battle was hottest, Lanza's troops making 
serious, if belated efforts to fight their way down the 

1 Told me by Professor Pitre, the famous collector of Sicilian folk-lore 
and traditions. He saw and heard this himself as a boy in Palermo. 

2 Conv. Pitvi. S. Rosalia died about 1170, but her bones concealed 
themselves on Monte Pellegrino till a plague in 1624. 

3 7. L. N., i860, June 16, pp. 577, 578. Lorenzo. The other great 
street, the Macqueda, had early fallen into the hands of the insurgents. 

■• Brancaccio, 220. Abba, 189. 

X 2 



3o8 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

great street from the Palace into the heart of the city, 
and the rebels to v/ork up it from the Piazza Bologni. 
The palace of Prince Carini, ruined by the bombardment, 
and the Jesuits' College opposite, were the sites most hotly 
contested during the 27th and 28th. The Neapolitans easily 
maintained themselves in the Cathedral, round the east end 
of which the fighting remained hot and evenly balanced. 1 

By mid-day on May 27, eight hours after Garibaldi's 
entry, the whole city was in the hands of the insurgents, 
except the large district round the Palace, and the two 
isolated positions of the Castellamare and the Mint at the 
other end of the town."^ Outside the walls, in the suburbs 
known as the Quattro Venti near to the Vicaria prison 
and the barracks along the northern quays, a strong body 
of Neapolitans lay under General Cataldo. During the 
first day's fighting they were cut off from the Palace by the 
advance of the citizens, who, having taken the Porta 
Macqueda in open fight, pushed out to S. Francesco di 
Paola and even as far as the Enghsh Gardens. ^ 

During the afternoon of the 27th and the next morning, 
the large bodies of men stationed under Bonanno near Parco 
and Monreale were recalled to head quarters at the Royal 
Palace. 4 Lanza, infatuated by the apparent safety of his 
position at that point, conceived the false strategical 
notion of concentrating there all his forces except the 
small garrisons of the Castellamare and Mint. The Palace 
was an ill-chosen spot for the concentration of 18,000 
men, because there they were cut off from further supplies 
of food and ammunition, and from all communication 
with the shore and the fleet, except by means of 
semaphores signalling to each other on the roofs of the 
Palace and Castellamare.^ 

In pursuance of this bad policy, on the afternoon of 

^ Lorenzo. Cronaca, 132. Forbice, June 19. 

2 Muncly, iii. Crcnaca, 132. 

2 Lorenzo. V. M. 20, 21. Cronaca, 132, 133. 

^ Mundy, 115. Cronaca, 1^1. De Sivo,ni.2i8. Times, June g, -p. g, col. i. 

^ Mundy, 120. Brancaccio, 219. De Cesare, ii. 322. 




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THE PRISONERS BREAK LOOSE 309 

May 27, the alter ego sent a fatal order to Cataldo at the 
Quattro Venti, bidding him join the main body at the 
Palace. 1 

Meanwhile the remnant of Pile's squadre, rallied by his 
companion Corrao on the hills to the north-west, were 
working down to Palermo by way of Uditore and Lolli. 
During the night of May 27-28 they fell on the Neapoli- 
tans under Cataldo, who had not yet carried out the order 
to return to head quarters. After some fighting Corrao, 
wounded by a shell, led his men into the city by the Porta 
Macqueda, and at dawn on the 28th Cataldo brought 
his troops round from the Quattro Venti and the Vicaria to 
the Royal Palace.^ 

The second day of the fighting in Palermo (May 28) 
began with the eruption of the prisoners from the gaol- 
fortress of the Vicaria. The gaolers, a detestable set of 
men, had wisely taken themselves off even before the 
departure of Cataldo's infantry. Early in the morning, 
as soon as the last sentinels disappeared from the ramparts, 
the many hundreds of political prisoners in the Vicaria 
burst their cells, and the foremost of the crowd began to 
attack with crowbars and naked hands the inside of the 
great iron door that denied them exit. Minute after 
minute its strength resisted their frenzied efforts, and 
the terrible cry was raised ' the soldiers are returning.' 
But the alarm was false, and finally the door was opened 
from the outside by a man to whom the departing gaoler 
had confided the keys. He had hastened first to let out 
the common criminals, among whom he had some friends. 
An eager mob of the best and worst men in Sicily, some 

1 Cava, ii. 85, gives the wrong date for the order (May 26), but 
Cronaca (pp. 132, 133) says, no doubt rightly, that Cataldo received it 
about 4 p.m .oa the 27th. De Sivo, iii. 218, and Paolucci, Riso, p. 82, do 
not seem to be aware that Lanza sent Cataldo an order to retire. Marra 
Oss. 15. 

2 Paolucci, Riso, pp. 81, 82, and Lorenzo differ somewhat as to the scene 
of the fighting. Brancaccio, 198, 199, proves that the Neapolitans had 
not abandoned the Vicaria before dawn on the 28th. 



310 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

2000 all told, rushed into the town by the Porta Macqueda, 
and flew to the barricades. i 

The original barricades, which on the first day had 
been improvised of carriages and household furniture, 
were gradually being replaced by carefully-built erections 
of the flagstones with which the streets of Palermo are 
paved. Many, even, were loop-holed for musketry, or faced 
along the top with sandbags. The Committee of Barricades 
saw to their scientific disposal, at intervals of a hundred 
yards, down the length of every street, until the whole 
town was protected from the centre outwards by a network 
of successive lines of defence. The populace, women as 
well as men, was ready with scalding water and heavy 
objects to hurl from the balconies on to the troops below. 
The noise of bells and the clamour of the multitude was 
appalling, and there was in fact every physical and moral 
discouragement to the advance of the enemy's infantry 
down the streets.^ On the other hand the fits of lethargy 
that seized the Sicilians from time to time were the despair 
of all the Northerners except Garibaldi ; ^ the small quantity 
and bad quality of the firearms, of which there were few 
in the city beyond what the peasants and the Thousand 
brought with them from the hills,* and still more the 
shortage of ammunition, which the squadre, with their 
childish love of noise and smoke, wasted in the most heart- 
rending manner,^ were circumstances which left the final 
success of the patriots still dependent on their amazing 

1 Brancaccio, 105, 197-203, 212-218. 

' Mem. 359. Leggi, 19, no. 22. Pictures and photographs of barri- 
cades in V.M. and Album Garibaldi. Conv. Tedaldi. Mundy, 129, 130. 

3 ' Not so energetically seconded by the Palermitans as one could 
have expected from their enthusiasm. There is a semi-oriental laissez-faire 
about them which only produces fits of activity. . . . Even the ringing 
of bells, the most demoralising sound to an army in a populous town 
can, in spite of all injunctions, be only kept up in fits and starts.' End 
of letter. May 27 eve. in Times, June 8 ; see also do. June 9, p. 9, col. i. 
Nievo, p. 357. Belloni, 81. Bixio MS. 

* Conv. Tedaldi. Campo, 125. Brancaccio, 219-221, 227. 

5 CoKv. Canzio. Mem. 359, 360. Timss, June 9, p. 9, col. 2, letters 
of May 28-29. 




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THE ROYAL PALACE. 




VIEW FROM THE ROYAL PALACE ROOF. 

Palace Square in front. On the left, between the Square and the Archbishop's Palace, runs 
the Toledo, which continues in a straight line to the sea. Cathedral, middle left. 



THE THIRD DAY'S FIGHTING 311 

good luck and on the continuance of Lanza's imbecile 
conduct of affairs. 

Early on the morning of May 28, the alter ego opened 
communications with the British Admiral by means of 
semaphore messages to the Castellamare , conveyed on 
board H.M.S. Hannibal at eight o'clock by Captain Cosso- 
vich, now in command of the Neapolitan vessels in the 
harbour. Lanza's first request was to obtain the use of the 
British flag to enable officers from the Palace to pass 
along the Toledo and hold a conference with the commanders 
of the fleet and Castellamare on board H.M.S. Hannibal. 
The use of the British flag in the streets of the town was 
refused, but Admiral Mundy, with the consent of Captain 
Cossovich, sent Lieutenant Wilmot, — the same who had 
shared Garibaldi's strawberries at Misilmeri, — to find the 
Dictator in the heart of the besieged city and ask him 
to allow the Neapolitan officers to pass down the Toledo. 
Garibaldi consented, but Lanza for the present refused to 
accept the concession as coming from the filibuster, since 
the use of the British flag in the town was not to be obtained. 
While these first abortive negotiations were pending. Captain 
Cossovich, who hated the service assigned to him of de- 
stroying a splendid city, had willingly, at Admiral Mundy's 
request, suspended the naval bombardment for several 
hours, though the Castellamare and the artillery at the 
Palace continued to fire.^ 

May 29, the third and last day of continuous street 
fighting, saw the severest conflict of all. In the morning 
the Sicilians and the Garibaldini made a determined 
advance against the Cathedral, which the men of Bergamo 
succeeded at last in taking. From its high, western cam- 
panile they were able to pour such a rain of bullets down 
on to the Archbishop's palace that this also became untenable 
by the enemy. The buildings commanding the great 
square in front of the Royal Palace thus fell into the 
hands of the insurgents, and Lanza's headquarters were 

1 Mundy, 1 16-134. By. Pari. Papers, 13, pp. 2, 3. 



312 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

closely threatened. Driven to bay, the hosts of the Nea- 
politans rallied after mid-day, and from the Porta Nuova 
swept their assailants back again through the Archbishop's 
palace, and through the Cathedral. As Garibaldi sat on 
the steps of the Pretorio fountain early in the afternoon, 
with a map of Palermo spread on his knees, his old companion 
in arms, Piva, who had been the first man across the river 
two days before, rushed up with the news that the Neapoli- 
tans were advancing from the Cathedral and bade fair 
to penetrate to the heart of the town. ' I must go myself,' 
said Garibaldi, and taking Tiirr and some fifty men who 
happened to be at hand, mostly Sicilians, he walked to 
the scene of action. At first the Neapolitans stood their 
ground, and one of the squadre, shot through the head, fell 
dead into Garibaldi's arms. But when he ordered his 
bugler to sound the charge, and the whole party dashed 
forward, the enemy fled back into the Cathedral. The 
east end of that magnificent edifice became once more, 
as in the morning, the boundary of the Neapohtan position. 

In these fierce fights of May 29, for the possession of 
the upper Toledo, the members of several Sicilian aristo- 
cratic families behaved with distinction. The brothers 
Pasquale and Salvatore di Benedetto fell dead together 
at the corner of a street ; a third brother, Raffaele, 
had been wounded two days before, and was destined in 
after years to give his life for Italy under the walls of 
Rome. The Di Benedetti were the Cairoli brothers of Sicily.i 

The revolution had scored one important success that 
day. In the morning a small handful of men, chiefly of the 
Thousand, North Itahans under the leadership of Sirtori 
and of the two Sicilians Ciaccio and Campo, captured 
the gate and bastion of Montalto and the neighbouring 
buildings, including the S. Giovanni degh Eremiti. The 
latter, with its cloistral ruins and little garden, well known 
to travellers as one of the most beautiful relics of Arabic- 

1 Turr'sHDiv. 60. Times, June g, p. 9, cols. 2, 3. Lorenzo. Abba, 191. 
Cronaca, 137. V. M, 23, 28. Brancaccio, 72, 73, 228-230. Paolucci, Rise, 
34-36- 




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LANZA THINKS OF NEGOTIATING 313 

Norman architecture, was retaken in the afternoon by the 
NeapoHtans issuing from the Palace. But the Montalto 
bastion and gate remained to the insurgents as the one 
soHd gain to either side of that day's fighting.^ 

On the night of May 29-30, two fresh battalions of 
so-called ' Bavarian ' troops (ist and 2nd leggieri), German 
recruits of a rather indifferent quality under Colonel 
Buonopane, who had landed near the Castellamare off 
two steamers recently arrived from Naples, marched 
right round behind the scene of conflict by way of the 
English gardens, and coming in at the rear of the Royal 
Palace, reported themselves in the isolated and over- 
crowded headquarters, where the scarcity of supplies 
was already beginning to be felt. 2 

Throughout May 29 Lanza had persisted in his refusal 
to communicate with Garibaldi. But he had once more 
feebly attempted to beg the use of the British flag to cover 
the passage of his own officers through the town, a nego- 
tiation of which the only results were to irritate the British 
Admiral, and to give to the humane Captain Cossovich 
an excuse for suspending the naval bombardment on 
the 29th as on the former day.^ But during the night 
of May 29-30 the alter ego began to reconsider his position. 
The failure of the serious effort made in the afternoon to 
penetrate from the Cathedral into the heart of the town, 
the threatened shortage of food, and the state of the eight 



^ The bastion itself has now disappeared, but the curtain of the 
older medieval wall of the city that stood inside the bastion is there still, 
see illustration, p. 318, below. Canipo, 126, i-zj. Cronaca, i^y. Tiirr'sDiv. 
59. De Stvo, iii. 221. Cicaccio Lettera, only partly printed in V. M. 22 {q.v.) 
and 28. Cf. Campo Lettera, 11-13, and Campo Risposta, 23, 34. Abba, 
189. Sirtori, 208. 

2 De Sivo, iii. 219. Marra Oss. 15, 21. Frafici, i. 56 (date wrong). 
Wittmngton-Ingram, 20^. Mundy (pp. 133, 138) somewhat confuses their 
movements with those of the other and better German troops (3rd leggieri) 
under Bosco and Von Mechel who returned next day from Corleone by 
way of the Botanical Gardens and Porta Termini. 

^ Mundy, 133-138. Cronaca, i^iT- Times, June 9, p. 9, col. 3. 



314 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

hundred 1 wounded, cut off from all necessaries, most of 
them suffering under his own eyes in the Palace, conduced 
to shake his infirm resolution. On the morning of May 30 
he awoke prepared to treat with his enemy in a manner 
unnecessarily humihating to the Royal cause, and penned 
the following letter, of which the address alone marked 
his changed attitude towards the ' filibuster.' 

'General Lanza to His Excellency General Garibaldl 

' May 30, i860. 
' Since the English Admiral has let me know that he would 
receive with pleasure on board his vessel two of my Generals 
to open a conference with you, at which the Admiral would 
be mediator, provided you would grant them a passage 
through your lines, I therefore beg you to let me know if 
you will consent thereto, and if so (supposing hostilities to be 
suspended on both sides) I beg you to let me know the hour 
when the said conference shall begin. It would likewise be 
advantageous that you should give an escort to the above- 
mentioned Generals from the Royal Palace to the Sanita, 
where they would embark to go on board. 

' Waiting your reply, 

' Ferdinando Lanza.' 

If a man on his way to execution were asked by the 
prison authorities whether he would be so good as to 
change places with the hangman, he would feel much what 
Garibaldi felt in his heart, when with calm and serious 
countenance he finished reading this letter in the presence 
of the two Neapolitan officers who brought it to the Pretono. 
The fact was that he had practically no ammunition left. 
He secretly sent one of his men to steal across the 
harbour in a boat at night, and beg ammunition from the 
Piedmontese vessel commanded by the Marquis d'Aste, 
who refused to commit any such breach of neutrality. 

1 During the armistice, 800 NeapoUtan wounded were shipped. 
Br Pari. Papers, 13, P- 6, May 31- Br. Cons. Papers, June i. The 
Neapolitan official estimate for the first two days', fighting was a loss 
of 208 killed and 562 wounded {Cronaca, 140), and the third day's fighting 
was perhaps the severest of all. 



VON MECKEL'S TARDY RETURN 315 

Garibaldi and many of his circle remembered this against 
Cavour, whose black purposes they saw in the ' correct ' 
attitude of a patriotic but much perplexed naval captain.^ 

So Garibaldi arranged with Lanza's messengers that 
firing should forthwith be stopped on both sides and more 
particularly that an armistice should commence at stroke 
of noon, after which hour the parties to the conference would, 
as soon as possible, proceed on board the British flag-ship.^ 

Before thus sending off, about nine o'clock,^ his petition 
to His Excellency General Garibaldi, the alter ego had 
received a piece of intelligence that would have made any 
commander of sense and spirit postpone all thought of 
negotiations. At dawn, the look-out on the Palace roof 
had sent word that he saw Von Mechel's four battalions, 
at last returned from Corleone and from the pursuit of 
the phantom Garibaldi. They were on the edge of the 
town, between the Ponte dell' Ammiraglio and the Porta 
Termini. Lanza for several hours neglected this significant 
news, and when it was forced upon his attention, instead of 
ordering a general attack in co-operation with the newly- 
returned column, he sent his letter to Garibaldi none the 
less, and even enclosed in it an order to Von Mechel, bidding 
him observe the armistice that was about to be concluded.^ 

* If Von Mechel had returned a day earlier, we should 
have been lost.' So said General Tiirr, the year before he 
died, to the writer. Von Mechel and Major Bosco were 
the two fire-eaters of the army, and their regiments were 
the fighting regiments, especially the 3rd Light Infantry, 
a battalion of Germans of much finer quality than those 
recently landed under Buonopane.^ There can be no 

1 Mem. 360, 363. Conv. Canzio. 

2 Mundy, 139-143 ; Marra, Oss. ig. 

^ Cava, ii. 89, borne out by the fact that Mundy heard the firing 
cease 'shortly before ten' {Mundy, 140), and by Eber's statement in 
letter dated May 30, 9 a.m., Times, June 9, p. 9, col. 3. 

■• Cava, ii. 88, 89, where the story is most clearly and fully told. 
Cronaca, 138, says the news of Von Mechel's arrival was brought to Lanza 
at 9.30, but this was not the first time siich news was brought to him, as 
Cava's narrative shows. 

'" Marra, Oss., 17, 21. 



3i6 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

doubt that, if they had returned on the 29th, the officers 
would have overruled Lanza's timid counsels, and the 
men would have borne themselves well in battle. The 
reason why Von Mechel did not return on the first or 
second day after Garibaldi's entry, was partly that the 
messenger sent after him on the morning of the 27th 
had been stopped by the villagers of Plana dei Greci,i and 
partly that the brave Switzer, whose motto was ' slow 
but sure,' had no idea of forced marches. On the latter 
part of the journey back, instead of taking the direct route 
across the Conca d'Oro from Parco to the Palace, he had 
passed along the foot of Monte Grifone by way of S. Maria 
di Gesu, crossed the Ponte dell' Ammiraglio, and spent the 
night of May 29-30 near the Botanical Gardens. His 
bivouac there, just outside the Porta Termini, had been 
seen before sunset on the 29th by the watchmen on the 
Castellamare roof, who did not however semaphore the 
news to the Palace.^ 

Late on the morning of the fateful May 30, many 
precious hours after dawn. Von Mechel began to move 
into the city, outside the walls of which he had been content 
to camp all night without making his arrival known at 
head quarters. It was not until a few minutes after the 
stroke of noon, when the armistice had just come formally 
into operation, that the stillness was broken by volleys 
from the Porta Termini and the Fiera Vecchia, which 
announced simultaneously to the Dictator at the Pretorio, 
to the British Admiral on his flag-ship, and to the alter ego 
at the Palace, that Von Mechel was forcing his way into 
the town by the very route that Garibaldi had followed 
three days before.^ Great was the surprise, confusion 
and rout of the slender guard of Sicilians under La Masa, 
thus taken in rear, in time of truce, and almost without 

1 See p. 2S2, above. 

2 Cronaca, 126, 138, 140; Marra, Oss. 17. It was they who bivou- 
acked in the Botanical Gardens this night, and notBuonopane's Bavarians 
with v/hom they are confused in this matter in Mundy, 138. 

3 Mundy, 144. 



VON MECKEL'S ATTACK 317 

ammunition. The newcomers occupied the Fiera Vecchia, 
and would have pressed on at once to the Pretorio, but for 
the activity of Sirtori. The gaunt, ill-dressed, meditative 
ex-priest, poised inexpertly on an immense horse, his 
trousers perpetually rising up to his knees, was during 
these days in Palerm.o compared by his comrades in arms 
to the figure of Don Quixote. But he was no mere filter 
at windmills, and in this moment of rout and dismay the 
Chief of Staff rallied enough men to keep the Neapolitans 
within the compass of the Fiera Vecchia, until the peace- 
makers had time to come on the scene. He did it at the 
cost of a severe wound, the third which he had received 
since he entered Palermo. 1 Carini, the finest soldier among 
the Sicilians in the Thousand, was also badly hit while 
endeavouring to induce both sides to observe the truce. ^ 

One of the next to arrive on the scene was a chance- 
comer. Lieutenant Wilmot. Having been sent on shore 
again to make final arrangements for the conference on 
his Admiral's flag-ship that afternoon, he was going round 
by what he thought to be the safest route to the Pretorio, 
b}^ way of the Fiera Vecchia. He suddenly found himself 
between a cross fire of squadre and Bavarians. Waving 
his handkerchief, he walked straight up to the Royalist 
troops, and, pointing to the hands of his watch which 
indicated that it was already past noon, he remonstrated 
against the breach of a truce in the observation of which 
the honour of the British Admiral was involved. The 
foreign officer and his men were, however, ' very much 
excited,' and seemed to be on the point of advancing, 
taking the indignant Englishman with them as a sort 
of prisoner, when the two Neapolitan officers who had 
carried Lanza's letters to Garibaldi, arrived on the scene 
from the Pretorio and saved the situation — and perhaps 
Italy. They made it clear to the unwilling mind of Von 
Mechel, and to his yet more eager and enraged lieutenant, 

1 Sirtori, 210. Cremona, 30. La Masa {Sic), Ixiii, Ixiv, De Sivo, iii. 
224. Cava, ii. 89. 

^ Mundy, 146. Times, June 9, p. 9, col. 3. 



3i8 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

Major Bosco, that an armistice had indeed come into 
force at noon, and that Lanza had given special orders 
that the newcomers should observe it.i Garibaldi appeared 
almost immediately afterwards, furious at the breach of 
the truce, and had an angry altercation with the Royalist 
officers, who consented to halt, but refused to retire from 
the ground which they had occupied. ^ 

Meanwhile in the Palace the alter ego and his Staff 
were eagerly disputing whether they should advance in 
force down the Toledo, and order Von Mechel to meet 
them at the heart of the city. Victory was in their grasp, 
unless honour obliged them to observe the truce until the 
Garibaldini had time to hem Von Mechel into the Fiera 
Vecchia with a network of barricades. Good faith carried 
the day in Lanza's mind, aided perhaps by the natural 
inertness of the old General's disposition. Much to the 
disgust of several of his Staff, he effectively stopped Von 
Mechel's advance, and gave orders for Generals Letizia and 
Chretien to proceed forthwith on board H.M.S. Hannibal 
to the promised conference.^ 

When Lanza's two delegates drove down to the quay- 
side at the Sanita, Garibaldi was there before them, signal- 
ling with his handkerchief across the inner harbour to the 
riflemen in the Castellamare, who were characteristically 
trying to shoot him in time of truce, and equally char- 
acteristically failing in the attempt. Generals Letizia 
and Chretien, who had hoped to deal with the British 
Admiral alone, were disgusted at finding themselves 
literally and metaphorically ' in the same boat ' with the 
filibuster ; they did not know which way to look when 
Garibaldi stepped in after them, and the British officer 
cried, ' out boat-hooks ' and * shove off,' before they had 

1 Mimdy, 145, 146, Cava, ii. 89, Times (June 9, p. 9, col. 3), De Sivo, iii. 
224, and Marra Oss. 20, all agree that there were two Neapolitan ofiicers 
who stopped Von Mechel, not merely one as Wilmot says, 

2 Mundy, 145, 146. 

3 Marra Oss. 19, 20, De Sivo, iii. 224, 




THE CASTELLAMARE WITH MONTE PELLEGRINO IN THE DISTANCE. 
View across the inner harbour from near the Sanita. 




INSIDE THE MOiNTALTO BASTION. 

Part of tlie medieval walls of Palci'ino. In 1860 tb'iv were already a ruin, and nut part 
of the delences. 



CONFERENCE ON THE FLAGSHIP 319 

time to protest. They were none the better pleased when, 
on their coming aboard H.M.S. Hannibal, the guard of 
marines saluted Garibaldi, again dressed for the occasion 
in his uniform of Piedmontese General, with the same 
honours as were accorded to themselves as representatives 
of the King of Naples. 1 

In the Admiral's cabin, where the conference began 
about 2.15 in the afternoon of May 30, Letizia's ill-humour 
burst out. He objected in no courteous way to the presence 
of the French, American, and Piedmontese commanding 
officers (the Austrian Commodore had not wished to 
come), and still more to the presence of Garibaldi. He 
argued with doubtful logic that Lanza's idea in 
proposing the conference had been that the Neapolitan 
officers and Admiral Mundy should draw up terms for 
an armistice, which the rebel chief could then either accept 
or refuse. Garibaldi and the Piedmontese captain, the 
Marquis d'Aste, held their peace, while the French and 
American commanders expressed their indignant astonish- 
ment at Letizia's language, and Mundy made it clear that 
for his part he was not acting as mediator, but was merely 
offering his cabin as a neutral meeting-ground for the 
convenience of the two parties, who must confer together 
a.nd on equal terms, if there was to be any conference at all. 

Letizia gave way and proceeded to read the terms 
proposed by Lanza for the armistice. Garibaldi made no 
objection to the proposals for free passage of the Royalist 
wounded to the ships, and of provisions to the Palace. 
But when Letizia had read the fifth clause — 

' That the municipality should address a humble petition 
to His Majesty the King, laying before him the real wishes of 
of the town ' — 

he thundered out ' No ! The time for humble petitions 
has gone by,' and then, giving rein to his pent indignation, 
inveighed against the recent treacherous attack on the 
city in time of truce, and the refusal of Von Mechel to 
1 Mundy, 147-149, 161-163, 



320 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

withdraw from the positions so occupied. The conference 
would have broken up, had not Letizia been, in fact, pre- 
pared to grant everything, in spite of his offensive and 
bullying manner, which was not shared by his amiable 
colleague Chretien. After some bluster, seeing that 
Garibaldi appeared quite indifferent as to the failure 
of the negotiations, he withdrew the clause about the 
humble petition, and an armistice was signed, to last until 
noon next day.i 

Thus Garibaldi, by playing out to the end a game of 
dignified and courageous bluff, had secured twenty hours 
at least in which to provide himself with ammunition.^ 
Before he left the British flag-ship, he took aside Captain 
Palmer, the United States commanding officer, and asked 
him to assist the cause of freedom with a supply of powder. 
Probably the American was no more compHant than 
the Piedmontese captain, and, in any case, he could have 
spared but httle from a slender store. ^ As Garibaldi 
returned to land, between four and five o'clock, the idea 
of a retreat to the mountains crossed his mind, though no 
one would have guessed it from his imperturbable manner. 
But the populace, whose zeal, though fitful and unrehable, 
was proportionately terrible in moments of exaltation, after 
being much depressed while the conference was still sitting, 
showed such a warlike spirit on the critical evening of 
May 30, as to put confidence into Garibaldi and fear into 
his opponents. The last shadow of doubt was removed 
from the Dictator's inmost soul, after he had addressed 
the Palermitans from the balcony of the Pretorio. When 
he told them how the NeapoHtan General had asked that 

1 Mundy, 143, 147-157. 

2 Canzio, the year before he died, said to the writer, ' We had scarcely 
any ammunition left. But for the armistice we should have been 
destroyed.' 

3 Cf. Mem. 360 to Gueyzoni, ii. 113. Winnington-Ingram, 203. Mundy 
(p. 161) supposed that he asked the Marquis d'Aste for ammunition at the 
same time as he asked the American Captain. But from Mem. 360, 363, 
and Conv. Canzio (p. 314, above), it is clear that he had applied at another 
time, sending one of his men out secretly to the Piedmontese vessel. 




THE ARMISTICE. 
Neapolitan soldier and patriots in parley. (From the Ventiseite Maggio.) 



FIGHTING SPIRIT IN THE TOWN 321 

Palermo should send a humble petition to King Francis, 
and how he had refused it in their name, the roar of joy 
and rage that went up from the fountain-square was so 
appalling that Major Bosco, who happened to be present 
on business of the armistice, grew pale and trembled, 
being even more affected than the Garibaldini by the 
spectacle of popular rage which he knew to be directed 
against himself and his comrades.^ 

From that moment, about five in the afternoon of 
May 30, until noon next day, when the armistice was to 
come to an end, the whole population worked with a 
will at the manufacture of ammunition and arms, and at 
the erection of barricades to surround and isolate Von 
Mechel in the Fiera Vecchia. Under cover of darkness, 
a Greek vessel which had entered the port with a cargo 
of powder, sold a certain quantity to Garibaldi, together 
with an old cannon. That night the city was brilliantly 
illuminated. 3 Discouragement proportionately set in among 
the Royalists. Desertions, especially by non-commissioned 
officers, began to be frequent. During the armistice 
Neapolitan soldiers were sometimes inveigled into con- 
versation, taken into the town and treated to wine, with 
the result that they lost their rifles or came over to the 
ranks of Italy .^ 

At nine o'clock on the evening of May 30 a council of 
war was held at the Palace, at which it was decided to 
attack next day at noon, the moment the truce had expired. 
Exact orders were sent to Von Mechel and given to the 
other heads of columns, detailing the routes by which 
they were to penetrate through Palermo and meet in the 
centre. But after the council of war had broken up, 
Colonel Buonopane, who had been in the heart of the town 

' Mem. 362. Campo, 128. Brancaccio, 233, 234. Paolucci, Riso, 
85, 86. Abba Not. 129, 130. /. L. N. June 16, 23, pp. 578, 593. Times, 
June 9, p. 9, col. 3 ; June 13, p. 12, cols, i, 2. 

2 Mundy, 159-161. Mem. 360, 362, 363. Brancaccio, 234, 235. Times, 
June 9, Eber's letter of May 30, and Times, June 13, ditto of May 31. 

^ Marra Oss. 22. Mundy, 163. Times, June 13, p. 12, cols. 2 and 4 ; 
June 21, p. 9, col. 5. 



322 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

treating with Garibaldi about the transport of wounded, 
gave Lanza so alarming an account of the perfection 
of the barricades and the spirit of the populace, that the 
alter ego changed his mind once more. The Dictator was 
asked to prolong the armistice for three days, and when 
he consented, at eleven o'clock on the morning of the 
31st, the elaborate preparations for the attack were all 
countermanded. Under the new armistice, the isolated 
position of the Mint, with the very large sums of money 
which it contained, was handed over to Garibaldi.^ 

It is perhaps from this moment of the signing of the 
second armistice, that the chances may be said to have 
turned in favour of the revolution. For every hour that 
the truce lasted made it more difficult to recommence hos- 
tilities. General Letizia and Colonel Buonopane were sent 
to consult the Court and Ministry at Naples, where Buono- 
pane's account of the miUtary strength of the revolted city 
frightened the King and his advisers, as it had frightened 
Lanza. There were also political and moral considerations. 
Great odium would attach to the young king, if he personally 
gave orders that the bombardment of his subjects should 
be renewed, after his generals had suspended hostiUties 
for four days. It might so far alienate England and France 
as to compromise his chances of preserving the throne 
of Sicily, or the throne of Naples if Sicily were already 
lost. It was felt that if the generals had wanted to renew 
the fight, they should have taken the responsibility on their 
own shoulders, and the application to the authorities at 
home seemed to imply that those on the spot knew that ^ ' 
the game was lost.i 

Capitulation was the most obvious way out of the - 
immediate difficulties in which they had involved them- 1; 
selves, and the want of moral strength and purpose ini: 
the men of the Bourbon regime allowed them to grasp 
at it for want of any alternative pohcy. And so, by the ., 

1 Crowizcfl, 141. Mar/a Oss. 22-24. De Sii/o, iii. 226, 227. The garrison ' 
of the Mint, 136 men, had almost surrendered on May 29 : Br. Cons, Papers, 
' Crovaca, 306-311. De Sivo, iii. 229. De Cesare, ii. 242, 243. 



THE CAPITULATION 323 

consent of the Royal Government, after another temporary 
prolongation of the armistice, a final capitulation was 
signed on June 6. The Neapolitans were forthwith to 
abandon the Palace and all other positions in the city except 
the Castellamare. They were to march out with the honours 
of war, and to take up temporary quarters at the Quattro 
Venti and on the great plain behind it that stretches to 
the foot of Monte Pellegrino. Thence they were as rapidly 
as possible to be shipped for Naples. When they were all 
gone the Castellamare was, last of all, to be handed over 
to Garibaldi, together with the six State prisoners of noble 
Palermitan family which it still contained. ^ 

If the Neapolitan generals had known the thoughts that 
were passing in the mind of Nino Bixio during the first days 
of June, they might never have signed this humiliating 
treaty. ' The second of the Thousand ' was afoot again 
since May 30, and from what he saw of the discipline 
of the forces defending the town he lived in constant 
terror of another attack. The Sicilians could not be relied 
on to perform regular and irksome mihtary duty. The 
squadre were many of them going home to their villages. 
The conscription decreed by the Dictator was proving a 
flat impossibility. Many of the island warriors were in 
the habit of carrying off for personal use the muskets of 
the Thousand and the rifles captured from the enemy. 
On the morning of June 7, the day fixed for 20,000 Nea- 
politans to march defeated out of the city, there were 
only 390 muskets among the remnant of the Thousand. 
Those who survived of that gallant body, now all dressed in 
red shirts to give them distinction and authority, were the 
one reliable element in the situation, and they had con- 
sequently to do continuous duty at the outposts, partly in 
order to preserve the truce, as the maddened Palermitans 
were liable to insult and shoot at the men who had mur- 
dered so many of their women and children. Garibaldi 
put his trust in the rage felt against the soldiery who had 

1 Tiirr's Div. 388, doc. 2Q. 

Y 2 



324 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

inflicted such horrors on the town, and believed that if the 
Neapohtans attacked again the incensed populace would 
fight with a furious desire for vengeance. But the slender 
and irregular character of the military defences were such 
that even the General, according to Bixio's observation, 
was ' sometimes confident, but sometimes anxious.' ^ 

In these days, when there was little sanction for law 
except the personal ascendency of Garibaldi, the safety of 
life and property was extraordinary in a city into which 
the criminal population had recently been emptied from 
the Vicaria. Some of Maniscalco's spies were hunted down 
and slaughtered, although Garibaldi managed to save 
most even of these. No one else had anything to fear, and 
the British Consul praised both Government and people, 
writing home that public order was far better than in the 
first days of liberty in 1848.2 

The terms of the capitulation were executed without a 
hitch. On June 7 more than 20,000 regular troops in two 
long columns under Lanza and Von Mechel respectively, 
evacuated the Palace and Cathedral, and the Fiera 
Vecchia ; passing round the outside of the town they 
marched to their new camping-ground under Monte 
Pellegrino. Von Mechel's column passed from the Porta 
Termini by way of the Marina, where, in front of the barri- 
cade at the Porta Felice, sat Menotti Garibaldi on a black 
charger, with a dozen red-shirted comrades, while before 
them filed along the esplanade an army in battle array. 
It was as though Goliath in his armour were surrendering 
to David with his sling. The British Admiral and his 
captains who witnessed the scene from their ships were 
filled with a sense of mingled exultation and disgust. A 
similar scene was enacted at the Porta Macqueda, where 
Lanza and his column filed off before Tiirr and another 
group of red-shirts. 3 

1 Bixio, 201-207, and Bixio MS. Times, Eberis letters from Palermo, 
early June. /. L. N. June 23, p. 599. Mem. 364. 

2 Br. Cons. Papers, June 6 and 11. Conv. Tedaldi. Abba Not. 124. 

3 Mi<M(iy, 173, 174. Winnington-Ingra)n, 206. Bixio, 205,206. Times, 
June 16, p. 9, col, 6. 



A NIGHT ALARM 325 

Of the loss of the victors in the three days' fighting 
from May 27 to May 30 there is no estimate available, but, 
comiting the victims of the bombardment, it must have 
run into man}^ hundreds. The Neapolitans had lost about 
a thousand — 800 wounded and over 200 killed.^ 

Twelve days passed before the whole army of twenty to 
twenty- four thousand soldiers could be embarked for Naples 
in the limited number of transports available. After a week, 
9000 still remained. 3 As the Neapolitans grew weaker. 
Garibaldi's strength increased, till even Bixio began to sleep 
at nights, instead of constantly patrolling among the 
sentinels.3 Soon after the enemy's evacuation of the Palace, 
a consignment of arms and ammunition had arrived from 
Genoa by way of Marsala ; and on June 18, the day before 
the last batch of Neapolitans sailed, Medici with the 
' second expedition ' of 3500 well-armed men landed in the 
Gulf of Castellamare, twenty-five miles west of Palermo. * 
During the latter and most dangerous part of their voyage, 
between Sardinia and Sicily, a Piedmontese war vessel 
scouted in front of them — so far had Cavour already 
dared to advance in the benevolence of his neutrality 
towards Garibaldi.'' 

On the night of June 18-19, when the Dictator 
himself had gone to meet the newcomers, Palermo was 
roused from its slumbers by the sound of heavy firing 

1 See note, p. 314, above. 

" Mundy, 175. 

3 Bixio MS. 

■• This Castellamare and its gulf have nothing to do with the fortress 
called Castellamare, in Palermo. 

5 Peard MS. Journal, June 17, 18, i860 (see Cornhill, June 1908). 
Bianchi's Cavour, 98, note. Persano, 34. The history and organisation 
of these later expeditions I leave for another volume. 

As early as May 31, Cavour had sent the following orders In cipher 
to the Marquis d'Aste in Palermo harbour : ' Follow up the overtures 
of the Neapolitan Coinmandant Vacca. Assure him In the name ol 
the Government that the Neapolitan officers who embrace the National 
cause will preserve their rank and have a brilliant career assured them. 
A pronunciamento by the Neapolitan fleet would make the complete 
triumph of our cause certain.' Chiala, iii. 254, 255. 



326 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

out at sea. Had the Neapolitans broken faith at the last 
moment ? Were they returning in force ? Were they 
wajdaying Garibaldi, who was expected to come back 
by boat along the coast ? The whole population rushed 
into the streets at midnight and flew to arms. In the 
morning it was discovered that the disturbing sounds had 
come from the British sailors, practising gunnery by 
night — the eccentric, indefatigable men, with no thought 
for the nerves of a city recently bombarded.^ 

On the morning of June 19 the Dictator returned by 
land to the capital. It was the day appointed for the 
sailing of the last of the Neapolitan army, in twenty-four 
ships collected ready for them at the quays beyond the 
Quattro Venti. All Palermo went down to see their ,. 
hated foes take themselves off for ever. At the momenst i 
of their departure, the Castellamare, left till now in the 
enemy's hand, would run up the tricolour flag, and the 
hostages imprisoned there would be released. Since these 
were none other than Baron Riso and the five young 
nobles arrested on April 7,2 the most popular citizens in c, 
Palermo since that hour, it would clearly be necessary to ( 
carry them in triumph up the Toledo. 

Everyone, therefore, had gone down to the harbour ; 
an unusual silence reigned in the upper part of the city, and 
Garibaldi for awhile was left in peace in the new lodging 
which he had chosen for himself in the Royal Palace. This 
M^as one of the humblest rooms which he could find there, 
the so-called Observatory over the Porta Nuova, at the 
extreme north wing, almost detached from the main 
building.'^ On one side, his windows looked down the 
mile-long Toledo to the sea ; on the other, up the road 
to Monreale across the Conca d'Oro. It was his first day 



1 Peard [Cornhill, June 1908). Durand Brager, 58. Conv. Delia 
Cerda. Morning Post, June 30, p. 5, col. 4. 

2 See p. 160, above. 

•'' Perhaps not without a touch of good-natured humour, he lodged 
the elder Dumas in the State apartments, when the uovelift came to join 
his friend the Dictator. 



THE LIBERATOR 327 

in these new quarters, and he stood gazing at the city and 
plain which he had freed from servitude and won for Italy. 
Above Monreale and Parco rose the grim and splendid 
mountains, where he and his Thousand had dodged with 
death ; while from the sea, up the length of the Toledo 
gay with flags and flowers, was heard ever nearer and 
nearer the joyful roar of the people, as they came bringing 
the released prisoners to present them to the Liberator. 
When the young men, with their parents and families, at 
length came into his presence in the little room over the 
gateway, tears stood in his eyes, and it was some minutes 
before he could find voice to answer their words of 
gratitude. 1 

' Peard MS. Joiirnal. Mem. 365. Times, June 29, p. 12, col. 2, 
Forbice, June 20. Giorn. Off. Sic, June 20. Morning Post, June 30, 
p. 5, col. 4. 



EPILOGUE 

The story of Garibaldi and the Tliousand down to the 
taking of Palermo has an historical and artistic unity. In 
a future volume I hope to carry on the history of the 
following six months, which resulted in the making of Italy. 
The occupation of eastern Sicily, the battle of Milazzo, the 
crossing of the straits, the march through Calabria and 
the Basihcata, the entry into Naples, the battle of the 
Volturno, the meeting with Victor Emmanuel, and the 
return to the farm at Caprera, constitute the rich remainder 
of the Garibaldian epic of i860. If it is no less extraordinary 
than the capture of Palermo, it is of a different character. 
The larger numbers and better equipment of the volunteers, 
never indeed equal to those of the enemy, differentiate 
the story from the wild adventure of the Thousand. The 
entry of Victor Emmanuel and Cavour into the arena of 
the war, the release of Papal Umbria and the Marches by 
the Piedmontese regular troops, the diplomatic history of 
Europe at the decisive crisis of the ItaUan question are 
large matters, though they all have their origin on the 
heights of Calatafimi and the barricades of Palermo. 



APPENDICES 

APPENDIX A 

CAPRERA 



I. The Scenery of the Island 

My description of the scenery of Caprera is based upon 
personal observation. I have not, indeed, examined carefully 
the southern portion of the island where Garibaldi did not hve ; 
it is not so mountainous as the northern part, but is of the same 
general character. I brought back specimens of the plants, 
the names of which were identified for me by the kind help of 
Miss Mary Swan and Mr. A. D. Hall. The prickly-pear cactus 
[fico d' India) is not common on Caprera, though there are some 
specimens near Garibaldi's house. It is much more common on 
the island of Maddalena. The cistiis is locally called mucchio. 

Garibaldi's poem on Caprera is worth quoting, because it 
is the best record we have of his inmost feelings towards the 
island. Though the poem sometimes bears the date December, 
1876, some of it is quoted by Vecchi (p. 116) as early as 1861. 

' SuUe tue clme di granito — io sento 
Di libertade I'aura — e non nel fondo 
Corruttor delle reggie, o mia selvaggia 
Solitaria Caprera — I tuoi cespugli 
Sono il mio parco — e I'imponente masso 
Mi dk stanza sicura ed inadorna 
Ma non infetta da servili — I pochl 
Abitatori tuoi, ruvidi sono 
Come le rocce clie ti fan corona, 
E come quelle altieri e disdegnosi 
Di piegar 11 ginocchio — II .sol concenlo 
S' ode della bufera in quest' asilo 
Ove ni; schia\-o n^' tiranno alberga. 
Orrido (• il tuo sentier— ma sulla via 
Deir insolente cortigiano il cocchio 
Non mi calpesta, e I'incontaminata 
Fronte del fango suo vil non mi spru/.za. 
lo rinfinito qui contcmplo — sccvro 



330 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

Di ogiii vil meiizogna — e quando I'occhio 
Gia preceduto dal pensier — le immense 
Cerca vie dello spazio — alle latebre 
Del vasto azzurro che circoiida i mondi, 
All' infiinita intelligenza — un senso 
Di gratitudin volgo . . . (illeggibile) 
Perche mi fe' dell' immortal scintilla 
Che m' imparenta coU' eterno — il dono.' 

G. Garibaldi. 

The fact that the rock crest on the top of the island com- 
manding the view eastward (p. 37, above) was a favourite walk — 
or rather chmb — is established by Vecchi, pp. 19, 20 (who also 
mentions the eagle), and by Melena, 1861, pp. 233, 234. 

II. The House 

The first part of the house was already inhabited when 
Madame Schwartz [Elpis Melena) first visited Garibaldi in the 
autumn of 1857, see Melena, 1861 , p. 229, and Melena, pp. 3, 10. 
There was then only one storey, and that was so still in i860 and 
in January 1861, see Maison, p. 26, Sacchi's visit, p. 14, and 
Vecchi, p. 3. But by November 1861, the second part of the 
house had been built with a complete upper storey ; for Mrs. 
Schwabe's gardener, Mr. Webster, writing to her from the 
General's house on Caprera, November 26, 1861 (Schwahe MS.), 
speaks of it as ' a new house, just about finished, papering it now ; 
four rooms on the ground floor and four upstairs.' This is borne 
out by the picture at the beginning of Vecchi of about this date, 
where the house has two storeys, and by a pen-and-ink sketch 
drawn for me from recollection by General Canzio. General 
Canzio's account of the matter runs as follows : 

' About 1861 Garibaldi had a second house built, contiguous 
to his old house. This second house had two storeys, of which 
only the lower now exists.' As to the upper storey, ' Garibaldi 
himself had it pulled down, because it was badly built and 
threatened to fall. This upper floor was pulled down in 
1866-67.' 

The little ' iron ' house presented him by his English admirers 
was little if ever used. L'Isola, pp. 72-6. 

Fruscianti told Vecchi that Garibaldi \\'as ' good for nothing ' 
as a working mason. ' He tried to build when we began the 
house, but the master mason was obliged to undo and rebuild 
his work, and asked him to confine his labour to bringing the 
stones.' — Vecchi, p. 38. But Garibaldi bui^t the walls on the 
island very largely himself. 



APPENDICES 331 

APPENDIX B 

NUMBERS AT VARESE AND COMO 

I. Varese 

At both these battles, on May 26 and 27, Garibaldi had 
practically his whole force of three half regiments of infantry, 
consisting of six so-called 'battalions,' amounting to scarcely 
more than 3000 men in all. See Carrano, p. 236, Mem, p. 281, 
Cadolini, p. 10, Hohenlohe, i. pp. 167, 206. 

General Urban on the morning of the 26th had the brigade 
Rupprecht, all of which could and should have been brought to 
bear on Varese. The brigade on the 26th consisted of only four 
battalions of infantry, with their complement of artillery and 
cavalry, see Krieg, i. p. 370. An Austrian battalion in this war 
was actually about 800 men, see Camp d'lt. E. M. Pr., p. 11. 
So Urban commanded on the morning of the 26th some 3200 
infantry, with artillery and cavalry. But owing to the futile 
operations described in Camp de Nap., p. 102, he only brought 
to the attack of Varese at Belforte and Biumo Inferiore two 
and a half battalions, viz. 2000 and odd infantry. The remain- 
ing 1000 were wandering somewhere in the mountains to the 
north of Malnate and Varese, a cause of anxiety to Garibaldi 
both during the defence of Varese, and during the action later 
in the morning at Malnate and S. Salvatore. Italian writers 
estimate Urban's force at a higher figure, but I adhere to the 
principle of accepting the official statements of each side as to 
its own numbers. 

II. Como [San Fermo) 

On the following day the whole of the brigades Rupprecht 
and Augustin were engaged in the vain attempt to defend Como 
against the Cacciatori. This is stated in the Austrian official 
account, Krieg, i. pp. 387-8. That account (pp. 370, and 387-8) 
makes the infantry of the brigade Rupprecht consist of foui 
battalions (one Szluiner-Grenzer and three Kellner) ; and the 
infantry of the brigade Augustin of four battalions (one Titlor- 
Grenzer and three Prince of Prussia's Own). I accept this lowei 
estimate, because it is Austrian, instead of the estimate given 
in the French official account {Camp, de Nap, pp. 104, 105), 
which assigns five battalions of infantry to each of the two 



352 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

brigades. If Urban had really only eight battalions of infantry 
at Como, he had about 6400 infantry, besides cavalry and 
artillery, against 3000 Cacciatori. 



APPENDIX C 

THE DEATH-BED OF FRANCESCO RISO 

(See p. 161, above) 

I am sorry to have to record unpleasant facts about Maniscalco 
and Francesco Riso, both of whom, especially Riso, were men 
of rare courage and self-devotion. But I do not think that 
anyone who studies the authorities in the list below can come 
to any conclusion but that Maniscalco hid from Riso the fact of 
his father's execution in order to extract information ; and that 
Riso, in the weakness of his last days, to save his father, gave 
up the names of some of those who had plotted the rising with 
him but not actually taken part in it. Riso was highly incensed 
against those who had, as he conceived, failed him on April 4 
after promising to help. He had twice, before the event, 
threatened vengeance on them in case they so failed him, 
see p. 155, above, and Campo, Riso, p. 12, Paolucci, Riso, p. 22, 

The authorities are : — 

1. De Cesare, ii. pp. 179-188. 

2. Pietraganzili, i. pp. 254-274 (pp. 261-2, Marchesano's 
statement). 

3. Paolucci, Riso, pp. 41-46 (p. 46, Chiarenza's statement). 

4. Riassunto del Processo pe' fatti del 4 Aprile, in Signer 
Lodi's collection in the Archivio Storia P atria, Palermo. 

5. Campo, Riso, p. 21 (confirms Chiarenza's statement in 
Paolucci, Riso, p. 46, while denying that Riso made any 
confession). 

Signor Paolucci, whose labours on the Sicilian Revolution 
are so invaluable to the student, defends Riso on pp. 44, 45 of 
his work. 

Unless we are ready to think that the Neapolitan police or 
Pisani forged the documents of the confession, the facts must 
be as I have told them above. The motives of Riso, and the 
degree to which his conduct is censurable, are, of course, open 
to various interpretations, and no one is inclined to judge hardly 
the man who gave his life to make Italy. 



APPENDICES 333 

APPENDIX D 

GARIBALDI AT CAPRERA IN FEBRUARY 1860 

Section I 
(See p. 167, above) 

The dates of his letters show that he was still at Fino on 
January 27, at Genoa on January 30, and at Caprera on February 
20. Probably he left Genoa for Caprera nearer January 30 than 
February 20. 

Section II 
(See p. 168, above) 

The letter of Garibaldi to Bertani, given in Beriani, ii. p. 10, 
under the date February 15, is really of the date February 20, 
as can be seen in the MS. in the Archivio Bertani, Milan. There 
is also on the back of the letter a postscript not quoted in the 
book at all. The full letter and postscript run as follows : — 

20 febbraio. 

Ho veduto Mignona e faro con lui quanto posso. Faro 
lasciare a voi tremila franchi, come porro a disposizione vostra 
i fucili che si potranno tenere in deposit© a Geneva. 

P.S. (on the back). 

Mignona vi ragguagliera d'alcune mie idee circa a Vapore, 
armi e denaro, e per le stesse cose vorrei vi intendeste con Finzi. 
Se possibile lasciare a disposizione di Cavour il meno che si possa. 

On the same day he wrote a letter (printed in Ciampoli, 
pp. 128-9) to Finzi and Besana, the Directors of his MilHon 
Rifles Fund, containing the following words : — 

' La vostra risposta al Ministero dell' Interno va perfetta- 
mente. lo sono d'avviso d'usare la maggiore deferenza ai 
desideri di Cavour. Ma, siccome accanto a lui si trovano uomini 
disposti a contrariarci, ci vorra pazienza e coraggio ed accortezza 
nel lasciarci metter dentro meno possibile. . . . lo sono 
d'avviso ci sia un nostro deposito a Genova, incaricandone il 
dott. Agostino Bertani, a cui ne fo parola in qucsta stessa data. 
Di piu lascio in deposito i 3000 franchi venuti da Napoli a 
detto dottore.' 



334 GARIB-\LDI AND THE THOUSAND 

From these two letters of February 20, and the statements 
made in Beriani, ii. pp. 9, 10, and Crispi [Letter a), p. 322, it is 
clear that 

(i) Garibaldi was prepared to supply arms and money from 
the Million Rifles Fund to an insurrection stirred up in Naples 
or Sicily by subjects of the Bourbon, through Mignona's agency ; 
if such an insurrection could be started, he was prepared to come 
himself to aid it, according to his promise given to Bertani on 
January 24 {Cidmpoli, p. 127), and presumably repeated to 
Mignona. The ' steamer ' mentioned in the letter to Bertani 
ma}' have been intended either to enable ^lignona to take the 
arms to the South at once to initiate the revolt, or else to cany 
Garibaldi himself there after the revolt had begun. 

(2) He was anxious lest Cavour, or one of Cavour's under- 
lings, should seize the arms of his Million Rifles Fund, if they 
learnt that they were to be used for any such purpose. This is 
in fact exactl}' what aftenvards occurred when D'AzegHo seques- 
trated them at MHan on April 16. But apart from that very 
just anxiety, which made him wish in vain for an armoury at 
Genoa under Bertani's supervision, he was anxious ' to show 
the greatest deference to the wishes of Cavour.' 

Section III 
(See pp. 168, 169, above) 

It is not true, though Bertani said it in Ire Pol., p. 50, that 
Garibaldi, ' almost forgotten at Caprera,' was urged to action by 
' Pilo alone.' Bertani is here unjust to himself and to Mignona. 
Crispi writes with truth in his Letter a [Crispi, p. 322), ' Garibaldi 
since February had promised us to carry to Sicily the powerful 
help of his sword. Repeating this promise to Pilo in a letter of 
March 15, he soys, Sec' 



APPENDIX E 

LAURENCE OLIPHAXT'S STORY 

I see no reason to doubt Laurence Oliphant's story, which is 

consistent with everything else that we know. An equally 
detailed stor\', if invented or elaborated bj' a man who knew as 
little as he (id about these Italian intrigues, must have clashed 
somewhere with other facts now known to historical research. 



APPENDICES 335 

Plis stor}^ is pro ianto confirmed by Crispi and De la Rive. 
In Crispi's diary for x\pril 12, i860, we read : 

' To the Palazzo Carignano [where the Parliament was 
sitting] to find Bertani. As there is a rumour that Garibaldi 
intends to go to Nice to make an anti-French propaganda there, 
I beg Bertani to retain him at Turin. Bertani agrees, saying, 
" Henceforth we must think of nothing but Sicily." Garibaldi 
makes his interpellation in the Chamber about the cession of 
Nice.' {Crispi, Diario, p. ig.) 

In De la Rive's Cavour, pp. 410, 411, we read : 

' Vers le milieu du mois d'Avril, Garibaldi quitta Turin, se 
rendant k Nice afin d'y encourager la resistance a 1' annexion 
projetee. . . . Pour aller de Turin a Nice, il faut passer par 
Genes. En descendant de voiture, a Genes, Garibaldi fixa un 
rendez-vous pour le soir, a un ami avec lequel il comptait pour- 
suivre son voyage. Le soir arriva, mais non Garibaldi, qui fit 
savoir simplement k son compagnon de route qu'il se trouvait 
retenu a Genes.' 

Oliphant's story fixes the date of Garibaldi's return to Genoa 
at April 13. For Oliphant says (pp. 172-3) that it was not on 
the 12th, the day of the interpellation itself, but ' a day or two 
afterwards.' iVnd it was certainly not more than one day 
afterwards, because we know that Garibaldi was in Genoa on the 
13th, by the date of his letter to the Municipio of Brescia 
{Ciampoli, p. 133). Therefore he must have travelled to 
Genoa on the 13th. 



APPENDIX F 

BERTANl'S TWO STATEMENTS 

In the great debate in the Italian Chamber on June 19, 1863, 
reported in Cam. Dep., we read two important statements by 
Bertani, the first certainly true in essential points, the second, I 
think, false. 

I. The first statement is : 

' I appeal to the memory of the hon. Bixio, and will ask him 
if he well remembers, twenty or more days before May 5, a 
meeting here in Turin, in a little room where General Garibaldi 
was living, present General Medici, myself and the hon. Finzi. 
The latter, together with another gentleman charged with the 
subscription of the MilHon Rifles Fund and the deposit of the arms 
collected by it, took note on this occasion of the materials which 



336 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

he was required to supply for the expedition. Then the con- 
ception was even more audacious than later, because the expedi- 
tion was to be composed of only 200 men.' 

This statement relates to a scene at which Bertani himself 
took part, and was not contradicted by Bixio in his long speech 
that followed. It is further substantiated by Signer Cav. A. 
Luzio, in the Giorn. d'lt, May 5, 1907, where he fixed the date 
of the meeting as April 12 (not April 19 as Bertani wrongly says 
in Ire Pol., p. 51 — Garibaldi not being at Turin on April 19). 

Signor Luzio also prints, in the same article, the letter in 
which Finzi, at that very meeting of April 12, i860, orders those 
in charge of the Million Rifles Fund armoury to send to Genoa 
the requirements for the expedition, viz. : 

1. 200 Enfield rifles. 

2. About 50 cavalry revolvers. 

3. 200 cartridge boxes and 200 bread-bags. 

4. 100 caps [cappdloUi) for the Enfields. 

Signor Luzio also prints another letter of Finzi's, which shows 
that this order was next day suspended by Finzi himself (presum- 
ably after Garibaldi's departure for Genoa) because Finzi judged 
the latest news from Sicily to be so bad that Garibaldi probably 
would not go. But on April 16 Garibaldi was still eager to go 
(see his letter in Bertani. ii, pp. 32, 33), and therefore Finzi 
asked for the arms at Milan on that day. 

II. The second statement made by Bertani in the session of 
June 19, 1863, is as follows : 

' Next I ask the hon. General Sirtori to tell the Chamber 
what answer he got from Count Cavour when he went to see 
him two evenings before the 5th of May 1 on his return from the 
festivities in Tuscany. . . . Count Cavour . . . said, " I don't 
know what to say or what to do," and, in the sly way he had, 
ended, rubbing his hands, " I think they will be taken " ' [io 
credo che li prenderanno). 

Cavour, as the Chamber well knew, used to rub his hands 
when he was pleased, and Bertani implied that he was pleased 
at the prospect of Garibaldi being taken by the Bourbon troops. 
But Sirtori was in the House, and shortly afterwards rose to 
answer Bertani's appeal to his memory. So far from bearing 
out Bertani's suggestion, he told a very exact story of an entirely 

' Really on April 23, see note p. 187, above. Indeed the words 'on 
his return from the festivities in Tuscany ' would alone fix the date as 
much earlier than May 3. 



APPENDICES 337 

opposite character, giving Cavour's words as I have quoted 
them in the text, p. i88, above, of which the gist was that Cavonr 
had expressed strong sympathy and had promised aid, provided 
they went to Sicily and not to the Marches. 

After suffering this fiat contradiction from the only witness, 
it was surely improper on Bertani's part to reprint the story six 
years later in his Ire Politiche, p. 6i, whence it has got into some 
histories, and into some minds. Bertani states in the Ire Politiche 
(i86g) that Sirtori told him the story in i860 on his return 
from the interview itself. But he does not refer to or explain the 
dementi which Sirtori had inflicted on him in the Chamber in 1863. 
Sirtori may or may not have said to Bertani ' Cavour says he 
thinks they may be captured,' but he could not possibly have 
wished to imply that Cavour hoped they would be captured. 
For apart from what we know of Cavour's feeling for Garibaldi, 
such a wish is wholly inconsistent with Cavour's words as 
reported by Sirtori himself. If Bertani thought what he never 
ventured to say outright, that Sirtori lied in the Chamber in 
1863, even then how would he explain the following letter of 
Sirtori to Count Giulini, written on May 3, i860 ? — 

' We are starting on an enterprise resolved on against my 
advice. See Cavour and do not let him abandon us. . . . Some 
days ago I saw Cavour at Genoa ; I touched on the insufficiency of 
our means ; his words give me reason to hope for his help [mi lascia 
sperare aiuto).' Guerzoni, ii. 30, note. Bianchi, viii. 290. 

Bertani was a great patriot and served Italy well in i860 in 
spite of some mistakes, but he did a grievous wrong in repeating 
this story, after it had been contradicted by the only man on 
whose evidence he pretended to rely for his information — the 
only man besides Cavour who could possibly have given evidence 
on the subject. No modern historian has a right to repeat it. 



APPENDIX G 

THE DECISIVE INTERVIEW AT VILLA SPINOLA, APRIL 30 

Slightly varying accounts are given as to the identity of the 
person or persons who finally persuaded Garibaldi at the Villa 
Spinola on the morning of April 30. Crispi's Diary unfortunately 
does not cover this week, and his statement in Mazzini, xi. 
p. Ixxvi., does not refer to April 30. But Bandi, pp. 29-30, says it 
was Bixio and Crispi. In La Masa {Sic), pp. vii-viii., it is claimed 



338 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

that it was La Masa who saw Garibaldi, but it is allowed that 
Bixio was in the house and partner in the affair. Jack La 
Bolina, p. 121 (j-oung ^'ecchi) , who was in the house at the time, 
says it was Bixio, who had brought with him the Sicilian Orlando 
(no mention is made of either La Masa or of Crispi). Thus all 
aUow a share to Bixio, and his letter to Fauche of that morning 
{Fauche (P.), pp- 32-33) bears this out. It can be said with 
certainty that Bixio \\-ith one or more of these three Sicihans 
(Crispi, La Masa, or Orlando) , persuaded Garibaldi by shov^ing him 
the documents which Crispi had taken some share in providing. 



APPENDIX H 

CAVOUR AND THE KING AT BOLOGNA ON MAY 2 

The story told by D'Haussonville in the Revue des deux 
Mondes, September 15, 1862, p. 420 [' Si personne n'ose,' dit-il 
(Cavour) au roi, ' j'irai moi-meme lui mettre la main sur le collet '] 
is accepted by Chiala but rejected by Treitschke {Treitschke, 
p. 182). I have given reasons (p. 197, above) why I regard it as 
needing confirmation before it can be regarded as evidence. It 
is not first hand, and its alleged source is not discoverable. 

It is perhaps worth while to quote what two of Cavour's most 
intimate friends have to say on the subject of his decision to let 
Garibaldi go. CasteUi, who had been consulted on the subject 
by Cavour at Florence in April, but does not pretend to have 
been present at the inter\dew at Bologna, says : 

' Garibaldi himself hesitated ; it was still more natural that 
Farini and Cavour should hesitate. They therefore adopted 
the policy of laissez-faire, of standing stiU and watching, because 
neither one nor the other had in Garibaldi the confidence which 
they knew he denied to them. The man who pronounced himself 
was the King, who alwaj's ended in coming to an understanding 
vsith Garibaldi, just as the General always felt fascinated by the 
frank words of the King.' {CasteUi, p. 88.) 

De la Rive wTites thus of his friend's action at this period : 

' It is evident that Cavour was not ignorant of and did not 
prevent the expedition of Garibaldi. Was he not able or not 
^^•iUing to prevent it ? I incline to think that his ^nshes com- 
pleted what his fear of his own inability to stop it had begun, 
and that Cavour felt a repugnance to the idea of a conflict with 



II 



APPENDICES 



339 



Garibaldi, behind whom he saw the feeling of the nation, whilst 
he gladly took into the scope of his political combinations the 
eventual faU of the Neapolitan Monarchy.' {De la Rive, p. 411.) 

Cavour's words, letters, and actions in April-May, i860, 
contain many contradictions. This is perplexing, but not sur- 
prising, because he often employed deceit as a part of his method 
in times of grave international emergency ; and also because 
it may well be that he, Uke Garibaldi, changed his mind once 
or more during this very difficult and doubtful crisis. For an 
instance of these contradictions : immediately after his interview 
with Sirtori on April 23, and while he is permitting La Farina to 
supply the firearms for the expedition, we find him writing to 
Farini on April 24 : 

' In Genoa I found spirits much disturbed by the conduct of 
Garibaldi, round whom the followers of Mazzini are rallying and 
beginning to raise their heads. The unrest is increased by the 
attitude of the more advanced party (not Mazzinian), which 
openly displays the banner of opposition to the government, 
taking for its basis of operation the questions of Nice and of 
Sicily.' 

Nay, on the evening of April 23, the very day on which he 
saw Sirtori and encouraged the idea of a Garibaldian expedition 
to Sicily, he wrote : 

' On veut pousser le gouvemement k secourir la Sicile, et on 
prepare des expeditions d'armes et de munitions. Je soupgonne 
le Roi de favoriser imprudemment ces projets. J'ai donne 
I'ordre de surveiller et d'empecher, s'il est possible, ces tentatives 
desesperees.' [Chiala's Dina., p. 299.) 

On the evening of the 22nd, the day before he saw Sirtori, but 
long after he had commissioned La Farina to hand on the firearms 
for an expedition to Sicily, he wrote to a friend in Florence : 

' Garibaldi is stiU here : he may go either to Sicily or to 
Caprera. He says he is waiting for the King's orders. The 
presence of Trecchi in his Majesty's suite gives weight to the 
assertions of Garibaldi. . . . Certainly this is not the way to 
hasten the departure of the French from Rome. Say so to the 
King.' {Chiala, iv. p. cxli.) 

A statesman so much in the habit of saying one thing to one 
man and another to another, covers up his traces from the his- 
torian who would track out his real motives. 

z 2 



340 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

APPENDIX J 

FAUCHE AND RUBATTINO 

The documents in Fauche and Fauche {P.) are in themselves 
conclusive. But we have besides the testimony of Garibaldi in 
Mem., p. 336, and that of Castiglia, v^^ho commanded the Pie- 
monte. Castiglia tells us [La Masa, Sic, p. xi.) that Bixio even 
on the morning of May 5 did not divulge the names of the two 
steamers to the men who were to seize them that night, ' because 
an agreement had been made with regard to them between 
General Garibaldi and the agent Fauche alone, and not with any 
of the partners in the Rubattino Company to whom they be- 
longed, and because rather these men, grown suspicious, were 
keeping their eyes on the steamers which belonged to them in the 
port. ' This extreme secrecy up to the last moment explains why 
so little was known about the matter by many who took part in the 
expedition, and why Guerzoni and other contemporary historians 
mistook the action of Fauche for the action of his employer 
Rubattino. General Canzio, who from his inner knowledge of 
Genoa port from i860 onwards is as good a witness as could be 
found, told me that Rubattino knew nothing about the taking 
of the steamers, and that it was all Fauche's doing. 



APPENDIX K 

THE FINANCES OF THE EXPEDITION OF THE THOUSAND 

I. The expedition sailed with 90,000 lire (francs) on board, of 
which 70,000 were spent on campaign up to the time of the cap- 
ture of Palermo. Of these 90,000 lire, all had been supplied by 
the Million Rifles Fund at Milan : 30,000 having been sent by 
Finzi to Bertani enclosed in his letter of May 5, i860 (printed in 
Ltizio, Giorn. d'lt., May 5, 1907) ; the remaining 60,000 being 
brought to Genoa by the last train on May 5 by Migliavacca, see 
p. 203, above. Of these 60,000 lire, 36,000 were in paper, and 
had to be changed for 1800 marenghi in Genoa itself. [Niivolari, 
p. 122. Bertani, ii. pp. 51-53- ^^& Pol., pp. 53. 54- Luzio, 
Mazz., pp. 149, 150. Finali 504-505, not quite accurate in 
detail.) Of these sums, the MiUion Rifles Fund had received 
over 37,000 lire from the Municipahty and other contributors 
of Pavia, sent at the end of April. See Pavesi. 



APPENDICES 341 

2 Other sums had previously been spent in preparing the 
expedition for departure. These sums included : 

(a) 8000 /^>/given by La Farina on May 4. whether as 
coming from the National Society or from Cavour him- 
self I am not certain. Jack la Bolina, pp. 123, 124. 
Mem., p. 336. Chiala, iv. p. clxiii. _ ^ , . . 

ih) ^0000 lire given by the Million Rifles Fund (makmg 
^ ^ \To 000 in all from that source if we add the 90.000 
taken on board the ships). Bertam, Reso., p. 23 ot 
accounts, note quoted below, and Beriam, 11. p. 42- 
(c) A separate large subscription from Brescia (see below 
here), and ' altre migliaia di lire ' received by Garibaldi 
from his friends in America. Ire Pol, p. 53- 
Here is the list in Bertani's Resoconto (accounts, p. 23. note 
referring to p. 7) of the sums that passed through Bert am s hands 
prevLuf to the departure of Garibaldi-viz. the total cost of 
the first expedition :— 

lire. 
From the Million Rifles Fund - 50,000 ^^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^ .^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^ 

I the ships, but all the other 
Ditto by Migliavacca's hands - 60,000 f ^^^^g mentioned in this Ust 
Ditto by post - - - - 30,ooo ( ^^^ ^^^^ spent on the pre- 

) parations prior to May 6. 
From General Garibaldi - - 36,592-72 
From the Cassa Prov. of Brescia - 98,000 
From the Municipio of Brescia - 10,000 
From Parma by Borelli's hands - 23,277.34 
FromN.M.- - - " - 30oo 
By payments of General Garibaldi 

to Messrs. Profumo, 10,000, and 

Gazzolo. 1000 conto corvente - 11,000 

lire, 321,870.06 cent. 

With regard to the story told in Venosta, pp. 585-587. it ob- 
viously refers to the financing of the second, not of the first, 
expedftion; Signor Luzio remarked this to me. Garavigha^ 
^vriting after many years, was confused m memory. There is no 
mention of a sum of 300,000 lire from Cavour or from any other 
source to be found in Bertani's Resoconto or any of the authorities 
on the finance of the expedition that started on May 5-6. The 
sum in question was presumably paid to Medici or Cosenz to fit 
out their later expeditions and never passed through the hands 
of Bertani or of Garibaldi 



342 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

APPENDIX L 

WHY THE FRENCH EVACUATION WAS STOPPED 

Thouvenel, i. pp. 149-154. Br. Pari. Papers, 12, p. 8. 
Ollivier, iv. 428, 440, 450. La Gorce, iii. pp. 372-384. 

It is clear to me from these authorities that the reason why 
the French troops were not withdrawn from Rome was the 
general fact that Garibaldi had gone to Sicily to begin a revolu- 
tion in the South, and not the particular fact that he sent 
Zambianchi to invade the Papal States. As Earl Cowley wrote 
from Paris to Lord John Russell on May 18 : ' The news of the 
success which has as yet attended the expedition of Garibaldi to 
Sicily, and the uncertainty to what further events and comphca- 
tions it may give rise have caused the order [to evacuate Rome] 
to be suspended.' Br. Pari. Papers, 12, p. 8. I think my friend 
Mr. Bolton King was wrong in saying {King, ii. p. 142) that it 
was Zambianchi 's expedition which stopped the withdrawal of 
the French from Rome. At least I have not been able to find 
any evidence supporting the theory. Of course, even if the 
French had been withdrawn, they would no doubt have been 
sent back if required to defend Rome, as they were sent back 
in 1867 alter their withdrawal under the September Convention 
of 1864, so that neither Garibaldi's nor Zambianchi's expedition 
can in any sense be said to have prevented the Italians from 
occupying Rome. 



APPENDIX M 

CALATAFIMI 
I 

As to the number of the Neapolitans actually engaged in the 
battle on the Pianto dei Romani, we know from Landi {Naples 
MS. Landi) that fourteen out of twenty companies under his 
command took part in the battle. ' Vennero ad impiegarsi in 
comhaitimento 14 compagnie,' &c. He is most expHcit on the 
point that he sent supports to Sforza from the town, in fact 
that he sent all he had except six companies. This is borne 
out by the Neapolitan major and sergeant present in the battle, 
whose letters are printed in Sanipieri, 29-30, proving conclusively 
that the Carabinieri as well as the 8th Cacciatori took part in the 



APPENDICES 343 

fight. The strength of a Neapolitan company (nominally i6o 
men, see De Sivo, iii. 121) was a variable quantity, sometimes 
as low as one hundred or ninety (see Sampieri, 27). But 
as we know from Landi that fourteen out of his total force 
of twenty companies were engaged, and as that total force of 
twenty companies is reckoned by Neapolitan writers as 3000 
or more {De Sivo, iii. 197, says 3000 ; De Cesare, ii. 210, says 
4000), we may conclude that 2000 actually engaged is not an 
over-estimate. 

In my account of the battle of Calatafimi above, many 
references are given in the footnotes with regard to particular 
points that seemed to require the citation of authority. But I 
may add that the account of the battle as a whole is the outcome 
of two visits to the scene and the collation of the following authori- 
ties sub loc. : Naples MS. Landi, Baratieri, Bandi, Capuzzi, 
Abba, Abba Not., Sampieri, Mem., I Mille, Belloni, Zetisi, Zasio, 
Floritta, Cihmpoli, Bruzzesi dopo 25 anni, Orsini, Oliveri, Riistow, 
Siriori, Bologna MS. Bixio, Campo, [Guerzoni's) Bixie, Turr's 
Div., Crispi Diario, Giusta, Menghini, especially Canzio's Diary, 
423-425, Conv. Canzio, Elia, De Cesare, De Sivo, Cairoli, Mario, 
La Masa (Sic), Elenco, Calvino [Guardione, ii. 434-436), Mazzini, 
xi. pp. Ixxxii-iii, note (Bensaia's narrative). 



II 

The following curious statement occurs in Landi's Apologia in 

the Naples MS. Landi : — 

' And here I must add that on the morning of the 15th, when 
I should have moved against Salemi and actually remained in 
Calatafimi on account of the news [of the enemy's advance] 
which reached me at daybreak, I received a dispatch from the 
Commander-in-chief, informing me that he had called a Council 
of Generals who had decided to make all the flying columns in 
the provinces return to Palermo, and ordered me to retreat at 
once. That was the first cause of my retreat [after the Vjattle] • 
the second was, as I have explained, lack of means of further 
defence.' 

Abba, who has written comments in the margin of the Naples 
MS. Landi, pertinently remarks : ' Why did he not obey ? ' and 
' The retreat made after the battle had no longer the same 
character as it would have had if made in the morning.' 



344 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

APPENDIX N 

THE NIGHT MARCH TO PARCO, MAY 21-22 

The route taken is accurately described in Cuniherii, 34-35 
and Paohicci, Riso, 63. Signer Paolucci spent much time ascer- 
taining the exact route from peasants and others on the spot 
who had been there at the time. I find these conclusions 
confirmed by the evidence of Bartoli Vitali, a Sicilian of the 
Thousand attached to the artillery, and Antonio Armaforte of 
the squadre of Parco, both of whom were on the march, and who 
explained to me the exact route, agreeing with each other and 
with Cuniherti and Paolucci. I afterwards followed the route 
and found it indeed the obvious and only way to Parco from 
the heights of Misero-cannone and Renda. It is an error of 
Costaiini, 125-127, to say that they marched to Parco from 
Lenzitti by way of Fiumelato, for the mass of the Thousand 
never went near Lenzitti, and even the skirmishers had been 
driven back from it to Misero-cannone and Renda on the 21st, 
several hours before the march took place. Although Signor 
Costatini is invaluable on matters touching his native town of 
Plana dei Greci, he is not so sure a guide on events that 
happened further afield. 

The deserted toll-bar, near to which they left the high-road, 
still stands on the west of the road close under Monte Cannavera ; 
it is called either Catena or Barriera di San Giuseppe {Conv. 
Armaforte, Cnniherti, 34). It is thus described in Abba's Not. 
88:— 

' Having gone a little way along the military road, we came to a building, 
solitary, dark, half-ruined, a house of thieves. There they made us leave 
the road, as fast as we came up, and we filed on to a narrow and stony 
track.' 

Antonio Armaforte tells me that they then passed near the ex- 
feudo farm of Strasatto, near to which indeed the track runs. 

For other authorities on the march see De Sivo, iii. 209, 
Capuzzi, 53, 54, Abba Not. 87-92, Mem. 354, Bologna MS 
Bixio, Cremona, 28. 



APPENDICES 345 

APPENDIX O 

FROM riANA DEI GRECI TO MARINEO 

The evidence that Garibaldi marched along the Corleone road 
as far as the stream, and turned off by the mill of Ciaferia is the 
local tradition of Plana dei Greci, as set out in Costatini, 136. I 
have talked to Signor Costatini about it in Plana dei Greci, and 
I have also discussed the question with the leading citizens of 
Plana in their circolo, where a very intelligent and just pride 
is taken in the history of the revolution of i860 and the highly 
creditable part played in it by the ' Albanians ' of Plana. 
Opinion in the circolo, on the evening when I had the pleasure 
of being its guest, was unanimous that Garibaldi went out by 
the main road and turned off it close to the mill of Ciaferia 
and not before, in order to deceive the Bourbon spies who were 
watching his departure from the village. In S. Cristina Gela 
the inhabitants told me that Garibaldi did not pass through 
their hamlet, but skirted its south side. This tallies with the 
idea that he came thither across country from Ciaferia, not by 
the road from Plana village. 

The fact that Garibaldi thus took elaborate pains to deceive 
Von Mechel as to his march on Marineo, is to my mind a strong 
argument that he already had in view the idea of joining La Masa 
at Gibilrossa and falling on Palermo while Von Mechel marched on 
to Corleone. He himself says that this was his object in making 
the turn at Plana (see Mem. 355, 356), and I see no reason to 
disbelieve him. It is indeed absurd to suppose that he had, 
at the time of his arrival at Parco, planned the move on Palermo 
via Piana, Marineo and Gibilrossa (see Guerzoni, ii. go) , and 
possibly he had no such idea even at the moment of entering 
Piana dei Greci. But it seems most natural to think that at 
Piana on the evening of the 24th he conceived this plan of 
snatching victory from defeat, though Signor Paolucci [Riso, 
69-73) guesses that he only made up his mind to go to Gibilrossa 
after he had reached Marineo. But if so, why did he go to 
Marineo, an exceedingly difficult march, and worse than objectless 
if he had wanted to rejoin his guns at Corleone ? 

Except his own statement in Mem. 355, 356, there is no 
evidence on the subject of the growth of the idea in Garibaldi's 
mind. x\t all important crises he was specially secretive, and 
pulling his cap over his eyes indicated to his staff that he wished 
to be left alone. It was a saying of his that ' if his own shirt 



346 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

knew what he was going to do next he would burn it.' {Conv. 
Canzio. Conv. Ricciotii. National Review, May, 1899, p. 494.) 
I may here remark that a weakness of the good General Tiirr 
in later life was to believe and assert {Tiiry's Risposta and TUrr's 
Div., passim) that Garibaldi was acting on his advice in taking 
all the most important and original steps of this campaign, such 
as the march to Parco, the march to Marineo, &c. These claims 
were most indignantly rejected by other Garibaldini, and are 
inconsistent with what we know of the military talent of Tiirr 
and Garibaldi respectively. I am glad to see they are not 
advanced in the life of Tiirr by Pecorini Manzoni, 1902. The 
brave Hungarian's services to Italy will be gratefully remembered 
without these unnecessary exaggerations. 



APPENDIX P 

THE ROUTE FROM GIBILROSSA TO PALERMO 

Garibaldi's route was, as I have stated in the text, the 
direct route by the foot-track from Gibilrossa convent and 
pass down into the plain at its nearest point, and thence 
through or near Ciaculli and La Favara (Castello di mare 
dolce). The route was not, as is incorrectly stated in so good 
an authority as Ctmiberii, 46, 47, by Belmonte-Mezzagno 
and S. Maria di Gesu. The idea that Garibaldi descended by 
way of Belmonte-Mezzagno, which will be found in many non- 
Sicilian authorities, seems to have arisen owing to the fact 
that Eber in his articles in the Times, which were translated 
into Italian and well known in Italy, incorrectly called the 
pass of Gibilrossa by the wrong name — viz. the ' Pass of 
Mezzagna.' Yet anyone who knows the localities reading 
Eber's account in the Times will see at once that the pass 
which he describes is that of Gibilrossa, though, as a new- 
comer to the country, he gave it the wrong name (e.g. ' the 
summit of the pass crowned with a Church ' clearly refers to 
the convent-church of Gibilrossa : there is no church crowning 
the pass of Mezzagno; and there is no mention in Eber's 
detailed account of passing through the village of Mezzagno) . 

Eber's fellow-countryman, Tiirr, not unnaturally followed 
him in making the same mistake of nomenclature, and his 
biographer even speaks {Tiirr's Div. 49) of their ' descending ' 
to Mezzagno, which is absurd, as Mezzagno is not in the 



APPENDICES 347 

plain at all. Many other Italians of the mainland (as Elia, 
Cuniberti, &c.) have followed in the path of this error. But, 
so far as I am aware, not a single Sicilian has ever said that 
Garibaldi came down by Mezzagno. At any rate the consensus 
of Sicilian opinion is overwhelming, and as far as I know it is 
unanimous on the point. 

1. The following Sicilian gentlemen, who took part in the 
march, have expressly told me that they came down on the 
Villabate side of Monte Grifone, through the region of Ciaculli, 
and not by Mezzagno : Signer Gaetano Principale (in La Masa's 
column) ; Signor Antonio Armaforte of the squadre of Parco ; 
Signor Giuseppe Campo, one of the best-known Sicilians of the 
Thousand ; Cav. Agostino Rotolo {Padre Rotolo in i860), who 
led the van of La Masa's squadre that night. 

2. The Bulletin issued by head quarters on May 29 [V. M. 
4, La Masa {Sic), Iv.), said: 

' La notte del 26 al 27 corrente il nucleo delle forze italiane 
e le squadre dei Comuni della Sicilian girando le maremme del 
piano di Stoppa faceano un alto nel convento di Gihilrossa, 
donde poscia guadagnando rapidi i sentieri dai Ciaculli alia 
Favara, giungevano al bivio della Scaffa ai cui molini portavasi 
I'avanzata dei regi.' 

3. Local tradition has named the Ciaculli route (among the 
olives) the Discesa dei mille. 

4. Local tradition at Mezzagno absolutely denies that 
Garibaldi ever passed through their village or descended by the 
pass beyond it. Indeed they actually point you back to 
Gihilrossa as the place of the descent. (I have tested local 
tradition myself, and Professor Pitr6, the great Sicilian 
antiquary and collector of local traditions, tells me that I have 
tested it rightly, and that he also knows local tradition to be 
unanimous against the Mezzagno route.) 

5. Among other printed Sicilian authorities that take this 
view are Campo, 117 ; Paolucci, Riso, 78 (who speaks of 
the route by Acqua dei Corsari, meaning, as he tells me, the 
district of Villabate, Ciaculli, not the precise place called Acqua 
dei Corsari in the maps, which is actually on the sea) ; Marzo- 
Ferro, 399, and Signor Enrico Albanese in V. M. 26. 

It does not appear worth while, in addition to all this 
evidence of Sicilians, to cite those Italian historians, such as 
Guerzoni, who, not falling into Eber's and Tiirr's error, speak 
of CiacuUi and not of Mezzagno. 



348 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

LIST OF PRINTED MATTER AND MSS. 
CONSULTED BY THE AUTHOR 

Abbreviations in the notes explained. 

[The mark * means that the book or document so marked contains 
matter important solely for events unconnected with the Sicilian expedi- 
tion, such as Garibaldi's Life at Caprera, Alpine Campaign of 1859, or the 
History of Italy, 1 849-1 859.] 

N.B. — The Bibliography in this volume is meant to refer only to events 
ending with the fall of Palermo at the end of May, i860. 

I. PRINTED MATTER 

Abba = Khha. (G. C). La Storia dei Mille, 1904. 

(Artistically the finest and most poetical narrative of the expedition 

down to the capture of Palermo, based on the reminiscences of the 

author (see his Noterelle), compared later in life with other more 

recently published narratives.) 
Abba's Bixio = Ahha (G. C.). La Vita di Nino Bixio. 
Abba's ' Cose '=Abba (G. C). Cose Garibaldine, 1907. 

{Articles on Cayitoni, Leardi, Siccoli, Giorgio Manin, Montanari, and 

I Trentini dei Mille.) 
Abba's AT'o^. =:Abba (G. C.). Da Quarto al VoUurno, Noterelle d'uno dei 

Mille, 5th ed. 

(The note-book of one of the Thousand.) 
* Aberdeen = The Earl of Aberdeen, by the Hon. Sir Arthur Gordon (Lord 

Stanmore), Queen's Prime Ministers Series, 1893. 
A damoli = Ada.mo\i (Giulio) Da San Martino a Mentana, 1892. 

(Valuable narrative of personal experiences, and descriptive por- 
traits of his companions in arms ; I have heard it praised by other 

survivors.) 
Album Garibaldi — Album, Storico. Artisiico. Garibaldi nelle due Sicilie, 

scritta da B. G. con dlsegnl dal vero, le barricate di Palermo, &c. 

Milano, i860. (Interesting pictures of street scenes in Palermo.) 
Amari = Am.a,Ti (Michele). Carteggio di, by A. d'Ancona. 1896 and 1907. 

3 vols. 
A mart Mus. = Storia dei Musvlmani di Sicilia. Michele Amari. 1854 ed. 
Arese = 'Boni3.dim (R.). Vita di Francesco Arese. 1894. (Roux e C, 

Rome.) 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



349 



"Argyll = ATgyU, Duke of. Passages from the Past. Hutchinson. 1907. 

2 vols. 
Arrivabene = KxiWaherxQ (Carlo). Italy under Victor Emmamiel. 1862. 
A rtom — Attova. (Ernesto). Cavour e la questione Napoletana. N. A. 

Nov. I, 1 901. 
A. S. Sic. = Archivio Storico Siciliano. Palermo, 1899-1904. Vid. 

Paolucci and Romano-Catania. 
* AthencBum = A.th.endSiMvn. Newspaper. 

(April 27, 1861, contains a translated quotation of Herzen's story of 

his visit to Garibaldi in 1854 from Rodenberg, q.v.) 
Bandi = 'Ba.ndi (Giuseppe). / Mille. 1906 ed. 

(The most detailed and realistic account of the expedition from the 

Inside. The author was on the staff and closely attached to the 

person of Garibaldi. For some corrections about Marsala, see 

Bruzzesi and Girolamo.) 
Baratieri='Ba,rdi.ti&c\ (O.). Calatafimi. In N. A., 1884. June i. (Vol. 

XLV.) 

(By one who took part, among the artillery. Best technical mili- 
tary account of the battle, but for criticism as to important facts 

about the numbers, &c., see Sampieri.) 
Becchio = 'Becchio (C). Un punto oscuro della spedizione dei mille. Pine- 

rolo. 1893. 

(Statement as to alleged boarding of the two steamers by port- 
guards of Genoa on night of May 5, i860, and consequent delay. 

But both Canzio and Elia tell me no such incident occurred.) 
Be'doZ/z^re = Bedolliere (de la). Naples et Paler >ne ou I'ltalie en i860. 

Paris, i860, 

(Well documented but second-hand.) 
Be/Zowi = Belloni (Ernesto). Scritti Inediti. Treviso. 1866. 

(One of the Thousand. Letters on Marsala, Calatafimi, Palermo, 

written from Palermo, June 24.) 
*Bentivegna = S-piT{done (Franco). Storia della rivolta del 1856 in Sicilia, 

organizzata del Barone Francesco Bentivegna. Roma. 1899. 
(Story told by one of the survivors.) 
Bersezio's V. E, = Bersezio (Vittorio). II regno di Vitt. Em. 8 vols. 1878- 

1893. 

(Careful, but nothing very new.) 
Bertani — Mario (J. W.). Agostino Bertani e i suoi tempi. 1888. 

(The best book written by the authoress. Especially important for 

Bertani's correspondence with Garibaldi and other chief actors In i860.) 

*Bertani's Cacc. = Bertani (Agostino). I Cacc. delle Alpi nel 1S59. In the 

Politecnico, Milan, i860. 
Bertani, Comp. = Le spedizioni di volontari per Garibaldi, cifre e documenti 
complem.entari al resoconio Bertani. Geneva. 1861. 

(Written to prove, as against Mazzini and Bertani, that the volun- 
teers were of all parties and not merely the friends of Mazzini or of 
Bertani.) 
Bertani's reso. — Bertani (A.). Resoconto di. Geneva, i860. 

(Report of administration and accounts of the Cassa Centrale, 
May-December i Suo ) 



350 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

B ianchi = 'Bianchi (Nicomede) Sioria Documeniata della diplomazia Europea 
in Italia, 1814-1861. 

(A most important source of information.) 
Bianchi's C av ottr = 'Bmnchi (Nicomede). // Conte Camillo Cavour, Docu- 
menii ediii ed inediti. Torino. 1863. 

(Important, especially for documents from the Neapolitan 
Foreign Office, 1859-1860.) 
Biundi = 'Bmndi (G.). Di Giuseppe La Farina e del Risorg. It. 1893. 

Palermo. 2 vols. 
Bmo = Guerzoni (G.). La Vita di Nino Bixio. 1875. 
Bixio, Sclavo = Col. Sclavo, Commemorazione : ai mani illustri di Nino 
ed Alessandro Bixio. (Fratelli Pozzo. Torino.) 1907. 
(Letters of Bixio, 1 859-1 860.) 
Bizzoni = 'B\zzom (Achille). Garibaldi nella sua epopea, 3 vols. 

(Beautifully illustrated. Partisan Garlbaldian.) 
Blind = Blind (Karl). Westminster Review, January 1904. 

(For republican party and Garibaldi in spring of i860.) 
Boggio's Guerra = Boggio (P. C). Guerra dell' Indipendenza Italiana, 
1859-60. Torino. 3 vols. 

(Useful collection of common documents.) 
Borghese = Borghese (F. E. G,). / 65 giorni della riv. di Palermo. Palermo. 
June i860. 

(Contemporary and local, and very fairly accurate.) 
Battalia = 'Bottal\a. (Paul), Histoire de la rivohUion de i860 en Sidle. 
Paris. 1862. 2 vols. 
(Clerical. Second-hand.) 
Bowrgeojs = Bourgeois (E.) and Clermont (E.). Rome et Napoleon III. 

1907. 
i?raw6i7/a = BrambUla (Giuseppe). Ricordi, 1848-1870. Como. 1884. 

(About the patriotic actions of the men of Como.) 
Brancaccio =^BTanca.ccio (di F., di Carpino). Tre mesi nella Vicaria di 
Palermo nel i860. Le Barricate. Milazzo, 2nd ed., 1901. 

(A narrative of personal experiences. Excellent on the part taken 
by the more energetic members of the Sicilian aristocracy in the events 
of 1859 and i860. A most fascinating book, and very important.) 
Br. Pari. Papers = Government Papers (Blue-books) to be laid before the 
Houses of Parliament. Those concerning Italy, 1 856-1 860, I tabulate 
as follows, for purposes of abbreviation in my notes. 
Br. Parl. Papers. 

1. * Correspondence with Sardinia, 1856. 

2. *Correspondence relating to the affairs of Naples, 1857. 

3. *Correspondence respecting the ' Cagliarl,' 1858. 

4. *Correspondence respecting the affairs of Italy, 1859. 

5. *Further correspondence respecting the affairs of Italy, 1859. 

6. *Correspondence respecting the afiairs of Italy, i860 (refers to July- 

December 1859). 

7. * Correspondence relating, &c., i860. Pt. II. (refers to January- 

February i860.) 

8. *Correspondence relating, &c. i860. Pt. III. 

9. *Correspondence relating, &c. iS&o. Pt. IV, 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 351 

10. *Correspondence relating, &c. i860. Pt. V. 

11. *Correspondence relating to affairs of Italy, Savoy, and Switzer- 

land, i860. Pt. VI. 

12. Further correspondence relating to affairs of Italy. 1861. Pt. 

VII. (refers to i860, May-December). 

13. Further correspondence, &c., 1861. Pt. VIII. (refers to June 

i860 to March i85i). 
{Re Adm. Mundy at Palermo.) 

14. Further correspondence, &c., 1861. Pt. IX. (refers to January- 

March 1 861). 

15. *Correspondence respecting the affairs of Naples, i85o. 
(Correspondence of Mr. Elliot and Lord J. Russell, June 

1859-March i860.) 

16. Despatches relating to departure of expedition from Genoa, i860. 
(Almost identical with No. 12, pp. 3, 4.) 

17. Correspondence respecting landing of Garibaldi, i860. 

18. Further correspondence respecting landing of Garibaldi, i860, 

19. Papers relating to affairs of Sicily, i860. 

20. Correspondence respecting political refugees on board H.M. Ships of 

War, i860. 
BronzeUi=^'Bevto\mi (F.). T Fratelli Bronzetti. 

(Part of Bertolini's Leiture popolari di storia del Risorgimento. 
Milano. 1895.) 
Bruzzesi = 'Br:\izzesi (G.). Una parola sulle molte siorie Ganbaldine. 
Lettera a G. Bandi. Milano. 1882. 

(Important criticism of some of Bandi's statements about Marsala ; 
first-hand evidence.) 
Bruzzesi's dopo 25 artm = Bruzzesi (G.). Dopo 25 anni. Arona. 1885. 
(First-hand evidence about Salemi and Calatafimi ; and about 
Marsala, for which also see Bruzzesi, at more length.) 
Bu^etto = 'B>\\'S,etto {G\ro\a.Tixo) . II Generale Nino Bixio. Fano. 1876. 
BM^/a = Butta (Giuseppe). Un viaggio da Boccadifalco a Gaeta. Napoli. 
1882. 2nd ed. 

(Most of this book, for the period up to the fall of Palermo, is tatien 
without acknowledgment from De Sivo, q.v. It is utterly untrust- 
worthy, and crowded with the most obvious errors. The personal 
experiences of the author are the only part of the smallest value. It 
has not the same merit as the other reactionary histories from which 
it was stolen without acknowledgment.) 
Cadolini = Cai.do\im (Giovanni), i. *I Cacciatori delle Alpi. N. A., July i, 
1907. 

(First-hand evidence.) 

2. Garibaldi e I' arte della guerra. N. A., May i and 16, 1902. 
*Cagnoni = Cagnom (di Achille). Descrizione di Caprera. 1875. 

(Describes it as it was in 1863-4.) 

Cairoli (i?osi) = Rosi (M.). I Cairoli. 1908. [Bib. di Storia Contemp., 

No. I.) Contains Benedetto's and Enrico's letters from the front to 

their mother. 

Calvino = A. most important memoir of the expedition, by Salvatore 

Calvino, one of the best SiciUan patriots, on the Staff an i clos-^ 



352 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

about Garibaldi's person. First-hand evidence by a man of intellect 
and judgment who, being a Sicilian but intimately associated with the 
Northerners, is above the provincial prejudices of parties among the 
patriots. Printed in Guardione {q.v.), vol. ii. 419-445, to which the 
page references sub Calvino refer. 
Cam. Dep. = Atti del Parlamento Nazionale, Camera dei Depulati. Torino. 
(Debate of June 19, 1863, declarations of Eertani, La Farina, Bixio 
and Sirtori, is one of most important authorities on relation of Cavour 
to the expedition. See also debates of December 9, 10, 1863, on 
conduct of Sicilians in i860.) 
*Camp. de Nap. = Campagne de I'Empereur Napoleon III en Italie. 1862. 
*Camp. d'lt. {E. M. Pr.) = Campagne d' Italie en 1859, ridigSa par la division 
historique de I'etat Major de Prusse : traduit de I'Allemand. Berlin. 
1862. (Said to be by Moltke.) 
Campo = Campo (Marietta). Vita poUtica della famiglia Campo. Palermo. 
1884. 

(Giuseppe and Achille Campo were both of the Thousand. This 
book, together with the three following books, give the family account 
of the expedition and of the Sicilian events leading up to it.) 
Campo, Letter a = C3im-po (Marietta). Lettera ai compilatori del 27 Maggie, 
1S60. Palermo. 1885. 

(Criticisms of Ventisette Maggio, q.v.) 
Campo, i?tso = Campo (Marietta). Francesco Riso. Palermo. 1886. 

(Important. Represents what the Campo family knew of their 
• friend Riso's action in i860.) 
Campo, Risp. — Risposta di Marietta Campo agli opuscoli del Doit. Onofrio 
di Benedetto. Palermo. 1886. 

(For correspondence between Genoa and Sicily in March and April, 
and fighting in Palermo, May 29, i860). 
CantU = Cantu (Cesare) . Della indipendenza italiana : cronistoria. Torino. 

Unione tip. ed. 1872-77. 3 vols. (vol. iii.). 
Canzio's Diary = The diary printed in Menghini, 419-432. 
Cappelletti's V. E. = Cappelletti (Licurgo). Storia di Vitt. Em. 3 vols. 

1892-3- 

(Fairly trustworthy, but slight. The life of Victor Emmanuel 
remains to be written.) 
Capuzzi -Cz.^uzzi (G.). La Sped, di Garibaldi. Ferrara. 1861. 

(Important memoirs by one of the Thousand. Preface, 9 June 1S60, 
says these memorie were written in mezzo alle vicende della campagna.) 
*Carrano = Ca,XT3ino (Francesco) Cacciatori delle Alpi. i860. 

(Best authority on the Alpine campaign of 1859. Indispensable.) 
Casife/Zi^Castelli (M. A.). Ricordi. II Conte de Cavour. Editi da Chiala. 

(Castelli was an intimate friend of Cavour.) 
CastigUa = Memorie relative al marino Castiglia. Quoted in La Masa 
{Sic), q.v. 

(Most important for the voyage. Castiglia commanded the Piemonie, 
under Garibaldi, from Genoa to Marsala.) 
*Castromediano --Castroraediano (Duca Sigismondo). Memorie Lecce. 

1885. 
Cattaneo = Ma.no (Alberto e Jessie). Carlo Cattaneo. 1884, 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 353 

Cava = Cava (Tonrmaso, Capitano deto =tato ii:ag.giore deC' esercit.-: ceile 
doe Sicflie . Difesa narionale SapcUtaHa. XapoiL i5c3. 

(Important anaiyis of mf^taa-cg; of 'Ses.^lzzssz ser^erali Verr 
good oa taking of Palem-. Teiii3 t' 'r^ -:c 3^"5r= -:t — -"-- - - -Jie 
few valid excnses. Ur : :: 1; i i_ ! : :i .: ; 1 i t i: ^ i- 

firrn. A fiist-rate aut^;*:: >; : ti ~_i_ :ii~:^ r :r l^ r.^: ij ^ 
it in defsice of Marra. e ; r . _ 
*C«i<ii7>' = rA« Century TUis.:: :.. - ll-z:^.^i. 1^=r^ Vtr^i: .'-"t :;:7. 
(Article cm Garibaldi in the United State- : >I ti_— ^ I rtrJi 
CAam&frs = QiaiQbeFS Xt-Jr:". G^r':- -■ rr - : — :^ 

(Not valoalile icr ;::: ir^^ :i; — ^-" -- ^^ - i- ::i-t^ : 

I do not Umik Ccl 11^— irrr .^-.iti;.;: i-Ii I^r ; l_ _ i^:^^ :.; :ir 

bai^as i860, thttrJtlr >^r~ r.:— i^i T^r It^_i- I t- : riT:. , itr^ 
wdl lator cm. 
Ciuria = Clriala (1-tiigi. iMtert ?i:U idineHteiiCmT^. 

(Tlie rreiT £ ;ir: r :; ^;^:~-r ire on Cavoot) 
CAiaia's !>:>>-:= -_ii 1 r. J : :««> Dwa. iSgi6. 

~:tv — i,£ 1 ir.rti ;; 1 1 : it sr 1 r-iitar of the O^nnEHK.) 
CHoia'j - -" ; = :^^i 1 - f. -- : -s serrate #f Nmpoleame III. s M 

Ckiala' s Stor . - _ . = C_;^i. _iir. --:; ; : _ . ;^ 

1S92. 
*Ckies:i = Cimsa (J- ddla'. XxsreOe Varssim. Vareie ::;f 
Cjjccto = CiacciD 5 erEJt:!i: . Ftto ^ Awfymio T ommumco C:^: : Jiler^o, 
1865. 

(Tnrpr— --- ::: Atr.! 4, i860.) 
Ciacdo IMU .= 'i. . A.\ LsHsra mi DetL Cr; i - -. 

Palennt 

(Partlj rttrtel ^ " / J^o^ia, fjk ?e '.te^ :;t— -? of 

Mantalto Ziiit t Ifi : ' 

Ct«ii^>ofo = Cii^t:: Z:-f- i. ..t ./jtifics « anlAvt AG _ : 

psot ai'ira.7; :..; i:;.:r i; t: dates, ±c, and ■rety far feoc: ::--:;. 
but :?t:t3.ir3 ;:-f ;:-rri ;— itted in Ximfines* Epistolaria. i£^_ g-.vcs 
tie ;;-7-5t; 7 P^tLrUri, of wfakit GaRranm gave saia|fcs.) 

Ccj*- - = :::tf— 3 ; S\ii fsSi poUticn mnlrtmn ieOa ria. Siai^ 

1 it;l:. Androsio. 1869. 

C< r ^ _ lliahg Sgs limUgms. 

..f- :: :^ iT-pxessknaUf^ ofaservaat lilaaty iaAf, ^ast 

syrzii'lzz:.: ::^ Italy, who was ia fbe PeoiBsala, aad fiaaBy at 
Tsat rr :: /-:?5o. It is difficiiit to kaow how omdi ike vaaoos 
incii; :f : : tversatioos are * wiiltun i^p.' Tlat of Dv^ae is 

certsinlv exx^iierated. Others have vensnaBitnde.) 

CMosiu = Colorma ^G.)- C<tapin*ioms H Puht 1 aal x86ol Sseista 
Sic^a ii scienxe ietter^mwa ed awtL Palexmo. 1S69-1S71. 

Co^ = Coppi (Abate Aatooio). Amm^ ^liaUm, 1872. 

CorUo = CQzieo,S.y G^ribmidi g i MOh im Saigmi. \.A.kKt886. Mmj i. 
iBv an eye-witnesj 



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JCi 



Cl^c^flE^eCsEz^r 



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BIBLIOGRAPHY 

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356 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

* Dumas' Caus. = Dnraas (elder). Causeries, 1885. Vol. ii. pp. 255-286, 
Une visite a Garibaldi. 

(This visit, when apparently Garibaldi's Memoirs were handed over 
in MS. to Dumas (see p. 282), must have been in January i860, to 
judge by the reference to Peard's visit to Fino, via Milan (p. 274), 
which as Peard's journal shows us was on January 12, i860.) 
Dumas' Garibaldiens — Dumas (elder). Les Garibaldiens. 1861. 

(The account of the expedition, especially from Calatafimi to 
Palermo, is not inaccurate on the whole : it was evidently derived 
from Tiirr's information given to Dumas in June i860, in Palermo. 
It answers closely in many particulars to Tiirr's Risposta (q.v.), which 
Tiirr wrote three years later. Dumas was not nearly so inaccurate 
as English contemporary writers said. But it is only the latter part of 
the book, relating events subsequent to the fall of Palermo, which is 
first-hand evidence, as Dumas arrived in Sicily only in June.) 
Durand-Brager — Durand-^rager (H.). Quatre mois de V expedition de 
Garibaldi. Paris. Dentu. 1861. 

(The best of the French books on the subject. Well written, 
sensible and first-hand. Various incidents not found elsewhere, 
especially about Palermo.) 
Dwight = 'D\vig\\t (Theodore). The Life of General Garibaldi by himself, 
1859. New York. 

(First edition in any language of the Memorie. Done from a MS. 
of 1850, and very incomplete as compared with the later editions.) 
Eber - Garibaldi a Palermo, narrata da un testimone oculare. Livorno. 
i860. Prima versione daW Inglese. 

(Anonymous, but is really a txanslation of Eber's letters as Special 
Correspondent to the Times, q.v.) 
Elenco = Gazzetta Ufjiciale del regno d' Italia. No. 266, November 12, 1878, 
siipplement. 

Elenco alfabetico di tutti componenti la spedizione dei Mille di Marsala. 
(Made up from earlier lists collated, and supplemented by latest 
information. Gives date and place of each man's birth, and where 
possible his profession. States where each of those slain in the expe- 
dition fell.) 
Elia — 'EMa (A.). Ricordi di un Garibaldino. Ed. 1904. 

(One of the Mille. Important evidence about the voyage, disem- 
barkation, and Calatafimi.) 
Elliot = T^\\iot (Henry). Diplomatic Recollections. Printed for private 
circulation. 

(Of great value. I am indebted to Hon. Arthur Elliot for the loan of 
this excellent book.) 
Epistolario = 'K.iuvenes (E. E.). Epistolario di Giuseppe Garibaldi, 2 vols. 
Milano. 1885. 

(See sub Ciampoli, above.) 
Fabrizi = MSvone (S.). Cenni storici sul Gen. N. Fabrizi. 1886. 
*Falconi = Fa\com (Dottor Angelo). Come e quando Garibaldi scelse pef 
sua dimora Caprera. Cagliari. 1902. 

(Valuable local information on Garibaldi at La Maddalena in 1849 
and 1855-56.) 




BIBLIOGRAPHY 357 

Fam. Crauford = Leffere di G. Mazzini a Aurelio Safji e alia famiglia Crau- 
ford. Bib. Stor. del Ris. It., Serie IV. N. 7. 1905. Citta di Castello. 

Fanti — Carandini (Federico). M. Fanti, generale d'armato. 1872. 

FaucM = Fanche (G.). Una pagina di sioria sullasped. dei Mille. Roma. 
Guerra e Mirri. 1882. 

(Gives the real facts about the Rubattino steamers, and the relations 
of Rubattino and Fauche respectively to the expedition. See Appen- 
dix J, above.) 

Fauche (P.) = Fauche (Pietro). Giambattista FaucM e la sped, dei Mille. 
1905. Bib. stor. del. Ris. It., Serie IV. N. 8. 

(Based on G. Fauchd's pamphlet of 1882 which it confirms and 
expands. Appendix contains Finzi's important letter of September 
6, 1869 (misprinted i860) on the relation of Cavour to the expedition 
and the supplv of arms for the Thousand.) 

Fazio = Fa.zio. Memorie giovanili. 1901. 

(For parties and classes in a Sicilian provincial town — Alcamo — ■ 
during the revolution.) 

Fa^^'an = Fazzari (Achille). Garibaldi da Napoli a Palermo. 1884. 
(Description of Garibaldi's farewell visit to Sicily in 1882, by his 
companion.) 

Filangieri = Teresa Filangieri Ravaschieri. // Generale Carlo Filangieri. 
Milano. Treves. 1902. 

(By his daughter, from the family archives.) 

FtMflZz' = Finali (Senatore Gaspari). La Spedizione dei Mille. N. A. Ap. i, 
1909. (Farini and the expedition, &c.) 

Finzi. = For the correspondence of G. Finzi, see Fauche (P.) and R. S. del 
R. and Luzio, Giorn. d'lt., and Appendix F, above, sec. i. 

Floritta — 'B\oxitta (E.). Rivoluzione o Tirannide. Palermo. 1863. 

(Mostly second-hand ; citations from La Lumia, Pian dei Greet, 
&c. Good account of Calatafimi.) 

Forbes — Fovhes (Commander Charles Stuart, R.N.). The Campaign of 
Garibaldi in the Two .Sicilies. 1861. 

(Always attempts to be accurate, but not very exact knowledge of 
proceedings of the Thousand prior to the author's own arrival in 
Sicily. Map of battle of Calatafimi inaccurate. A fairly good 
authority for Milazzo and the later part of the expedition which is 
not dealt with in this volume. Can be recommended to English 
readers.) 

Fon'o = Forio (G. da). La Vita di G. Garibaldi. Napoli (Perrotti). 1862. 

Franci = Franci (Giovanni delli, Uff. superiore dello stato magg. dell'Es- 
ercito Nap.) Campagna d'autunno del i860. Napoli. 1870. 

Franciosi = Fiancio5i (P.). II 15 Maggio, i860. Palermo. 1889. 
(In praise of Palizzolo's part in the expedition.) 

Gaily Knight = ¥lenry Gaily Knight, M.P. The Normans in Sicily. 1838. 
(One of the first and most readable of the learned modern books 
about Sicily. The account of the Englishman's travels in Sicily in 
1836 is in itself interesting, besides being full of historical and archi- 
tectural information.) 

GawrfoZ/i = Gandolfi (A.). Garibaldi Generale. N. A., Jimo 1883. 
(On Garibaldi's art of war. See also Cadolini and Nicolosi.) 



358 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

Gazzetta = Gazzetta Ufficiale del regno (see Elenco). 
*Giglioli = Gig\io\i (Constance H. D.) Naples in 1799 

*Gioberti e Pa//. = Maineri (B. E.). II Piemonte negli anni 1850-1-2 : 
lettere di V. Gioberti e G. Pallavicino. 
[Of. Manin e Pall., below.) 
Giorn. d'lt. = Giornale d' Italia. 

(Contains important articles by Luzio and Mirabelli on Cavour's 
relations to the expedition. See Luzio and Mirabelli.) 
Giorn. di Sic. = Giornale di Sicilia. 

(1901, May 26-27, anniversary number.) 
Girolamo = Marsala nelV 11 Maggio, i860. Ricordi storico-critici di 
A.D.G. Marsala. 1890. ^ . D. G. = Andrea di Girolamo, one of the 
Decurioni of Marsala at the time of Garibaldi's landing. 

(Corrections of Bandi, q.v., and much first-hand information about 
May 11-12 in Marsala.) 
Gms^a = Giusta (Prof. Giuseppe). Da Talatnone a Palermo. (Casanova, 
Torino. 1907.) 

(Diary of one of the Thousand.) 
* Gladstone = Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E. Two Letters to the Earl of Aberdeen 
on the State Prosecutions of the Neapolitan Government. John Murray. 
1851. 
*Gladstone's £;ram. = Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E. An examination of the 

official reply of the Neapolitan Government. John Murray. 1852. 
*Gladstone, Rass.—Rassegna degli errori e delle fallacie publicate {sic) dal 
Sig. Gladstone, in due sue lettere al Conte A berdeen. Napoli, Stamperia 
del Fibreno. 1851. 

English edition. Review of the errors, &c., 1851. (Brettel, Rupert 
Street.) 

(A French version, announced as by authority, appears in the 
Journal des Debats, September 27, 28, 30, 1851.) 
Grabinski = Giahmski (G.). La Fine di un regno. Firenze. 1896. 

(Sympathetic criticism of De Cesare.) 
Gregorovius — GregOTOvms (Ferdinand). The Roman Journals of, 1852-74. 

Translated by Mrs. Hamilton. 1907. 
Greville = Greville Memoirs. Longmans. 1903. Silver Library Edition. 

vols, vii.-viii. 
Guardione = Guavdione (Francesco). II dominio dei Borboni in Sicilia dal 
1830 al 1861. 

(Prints some important documents, especially the memoir of 
Calvino, q.v.) 
Guerzoni = GneTzoni (Giuseppe). Garibaldi. Firenze. 1882. 2 vols. 

(Standard life of Garibaldi. The author took an active part in the 
Garibaldian affairs of 1859-60. An excellent book, though not up to 
date in light of recent research.) 
Hansard = Hansard's Parliamentary Debates. 

d'Haussonville = d''H.aMSSOXiWTl\e (O.). Revue des deux Mondes, Sept. 15, 
1862. M. Cavour et la crise italienne. 

(See Appendix H., above, on this controversy.) 
*Hohenlohe = General Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen. Letters on Strategy. Edited 
by Capt. W. H. James. 189S. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 359 

Holyoake = Ho\yoake (George Jacob). Bygones worth remembering. 1905. 
/ Mi7/e = Garibaldi (Giuseppe). I Mille. 1874. 2nd ed. 

(Half a history, half a novel. Not very useful, but should be com- 
pared with his Memorie.) 
Irs Politiche = 'Bertam (Agostino). Ire politiche d'oltre tomba. 1869. 

(Part of a famous controversy. Reply to La Farina, q.v., and see 

Tiirr's Risposta.) 
Italia Marinara (Naples maritime weekly — contains interesting historical 

articles with a rather different standpoint from the usual.) 
Jack La Bolina = Yecchi (Vittorio = Jack La Bolina). La Vita e le gesta 

di G. Garibaldi. 1882. 

(The son of Garibaldi's intimate friend, A. Vecchi, and saw much of 

Garibaldi in private life.) 
*/oA«s^oM = Johnston (R. M.). Napoleonic Empire in South Italy. 1904. 
i^m^ = Bolton King. A History of Italian Unity. 1814-1871. 1898. 2 vols. 

(Standard general history for the English reader.) 
King's Mazzini = 'Bo\ton King. Mazzini. Dent. 1902. 
*Krieg = Der Krieg in Italien, 1859, nach den Feld-acten und anderen 

authentischen Quellen bearheitet durck K. K. Generalstabs Bureau filr 

Kriegsgerichten. Wien. 1872-76. 
*Krieg [unofficial) —Dev Krieg im Jahre 1859. Nach ofl&ziellen Quellen 

nicht ofhziell bearbeitet. Bamberg. 1894. 
La-Cecz7ia = La-Cecilia (Giovanni). Storia degli ultimi rivolgimenti Sicil- 

iani. Firenze. 2 vols. (No date.) 

(Many documents, but mostly now printed elsewhere.) 
La Farina = 1^3, Farina. Epistolario. 2 vols. 1869. 

(The storm-centre of more than one fierce controversy. See 

Bertani's Ire politiche ; neither book can be trusted without collation 

with the other, besides testing by the evidence of less interested 

parties.) See also Biundi. 
La Gorce = La Gorce (Pierre de). Histoire du second empire. 1 894-1905. 
(This chef-d' oeuvre of the distinguished historian shows a far greater 

knowledge of Italian history and of Italian authorities for i859-i86o» 

than did his earlier work, Histoire de la seconde Republique Frangaise, 

for the affairs of Rome, 1849.) 
La Lumia = L,a Lumia (Isidoro). La Rest. Borhonica e la riv. in Sic. dal 

4 Aprile al 18 Giugno. Palermo, i860. 
La Masa (Sic.) =Alcuni fatti e documenti delta Riv. dell' It. Merid. riguar- 

danti i Siciliani e La Masa. Torino. 1S61. 

(Most important documents for the Sicilians' part in the revolution 

of May-June, the basis of much in Oddo, q.v. Map of La Masa's own 

movements. Contains, pp. x-xxii, long quotations from the Memorie 

relative al marino Castiglia, important for the voyage.) 
L'assartu 4 Ap. =Mirabella (Vincenzo). L'assartii di lu 4 Aprili. Lu veru 

fatlu storicu cu tutti li soi particolarta. Palermo. 1885. 

' Quaeque ipsa miserrima vidi 
Et quorum pars magna fui.' 

(Poem in Sicilian dialect describing what happened among the 
monks at La Gancia that day, by Prof. Vincenzo Mirabelli. (See 



36o GARIBALDI AXD THE THOUSAND 

Paohuxiy Da Riso. 25.) He was a novice in convent at the time. It 

T^^tg therefore more Mstorical value than the other poems, as being fay 

an eye-witness.) 
l.^gi della Dittahtra=Collexume diUe lesgi, decreti e disposixiomi govematitt, 

compUate daS axmoceto Nicold PorceUi. Palermo, i860, ist ed. ; 1861, 

2Bd ed. 
L'ln, Sic.=L'insurrezione SicUutna, Per c^ra di L. E. T. iliiano. 186: 
(A once nsefol collection of documents, bnt they are nearly aU now 

pnbHshed dsewhere.) 
*I,'Js<«-a= Morals (R. T.). L'isola sacra, 1907. 

(With introdnction by Canzio. A modem book about Capieza.) 
L'Ora=L'Ora (Siciiian Joumal), May 26-27. ^90t. 

(Biographical notes on Pantaleo, Castigiia, FarinL) 
Loreuso=IjX'eBzo (Francesco di). Piamta topogreijica deUa citta di Palermo 

col rag^vaglio deUe Fasioni di guerra seguiie dai 4 ApriU ai 19 Giugno 

i85o. Dedi^aia a Francesco Crispi (Geuova). 

(Tlie text attached to this map. which can be foimd in the Moseo 

Nazionale at Palermo, is a val-^rle crnte— rorary account of the 

various actions in city on May 2 7-30. . 
Lu^o, Biifiore = 1.12210 {A.). I mariiri di Bzl-.:r:. 2nd ed. 1908. 

(A strictly scisitiSc examination :r:— l::ument3 of the real 

character of Austrian repressive meis/re; m Xorth Italy, in a 

famous case. Ed. i (1005), p. 394, contains a letter of Finzi's, im- 
portant for the history of Cavour's relation to the Sicilian expeditiosi, 

1S60.) 
Lvzio. Corr. Sera = Luzio'5 important arrlrle en Cavcnr's relations to the 

Expedition in the Corriere deUa 5: " . _ rnst 23. 1907. 
Zjtsio, Gion*. «f/f.= Ditto in the Gia/t;: . :.:oiMay5, 1907. 
LmHo, Mtt»i«i = Luzio (A^. G. Mazzim. Miiano. 1905. 
Luxio's Prof.Ji = 'L-zLo A.>. Prr-.'^i Bi:^r3f-:i- 1906. 

(Contains an excellrnt thrn^h very slifht sketch of Bixio, pp. 303- 

310.) 
*J^3tsoi»=LIais:n ^mile,. Caprsrx. Les lyisirs de Garibaldi. Paris. 

1861. 
Jifai^Res&fcr>'=MaImesbary, tnirl Earl cl AfiwiaiVs of an ex-minister. 

1S84. 
MaiKcini='iSaBiam. (Grazia). Impressioni e ricordi. 1908. 
Msmbrimi=Dociimenii deila riv. diNapoli. 1860-62. A Rcn22n:)->lan r'rrin. 

NapolL 1864. 
*Manin e PaC.=Maineri (B. E.). Mamn e Pailati:: .: Z .:: 

(For the junction of the democratic parties tc 1 1 ; r an i >I : u? 1 :f 

Savoy, 1S55-57, cf. Giobeni e Pali. i<x 1S50-53.} 
Jf«rco=ilarco Prof. Emm. de). La SicOia nel decenido avanii la spsd. 

dei MiUe. Catania. 1S97. 

(Contains much material, including valuable documents about 

April 4, and letts" by General Rttaluga on details of Pflo's death.) 
Maria So^i*a=Tschudi (Clara). Maria Scphia. Queen of Xapies. Trans- 
lated frcHn the Norwegian by Ethd Heam. Sonnenschein. 1905. 
Mafio= Mario Qessie White), Garibaldi e i sttoi tempi, MHano. Ed. 

I9C = 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 361 

(Not always safe, but contains much valuable information. She 
knew the chief actors well, and her book is a deservedly popular 
history.) 
Mario, Mac.^Macmillan's Magazine, July 1882. Alberto Mario's Per- 
sonal Reminiscences of General Garibaldi. 
Mario's Mazzini = 'M^axio (J. W.). Vita di Mazzini. Milano. Sonzogno. 
1896. 

(Not impartial, but full of first-hand information and documents.) 
Mario, Supp. = Ma.Tio (J. W.). Supplement to English translation of Gari- 
baldi's Memoirs. 

(Contains stray pieces of information not found elsewhere.) 
Mario, Fito — Mario (J. W.). Vita di Giuseppe Garibaldi. Milano. Ed. 
1882. 

(Less full than her Garibaldi e i suoi tempi, q.v.) 
M arr a = Maria., II generate Pasquale : documenti, etc. Napoli. i86o(?). 

(Answer to Cava's attack, q.v.) 
Marra, Oss. = Osservazioni del Generate Bartolo Marra sulla storia di A . B. 
Cognetti. Napoli. 1868. 

(Answer to Cognetti' s Fio IX. e il suo secolo : defence of Marra' s 
conduct. Gives important first-hand evidence as to Lanza's councils 
of war in Palermo, May 27-31. For the identity of the brothers 
Marra, see Cava, ii. p. 85.) 
*Martinengo Cesaresco = Martinengo Cesaresco (Contessa). Patriotti 
Italiani. Milano. 1890. 

Latest English edition (1901), Italian Characters, contains, besides 

the excellent sketches of Bixio, Settembrini and Poerio, a new sketch 

of Castromediano ; the page references are to this edition. 

Martinengo Cesaresco' s Cavour = M3,Ttin.evgo Cesaresco (Countess). Cavcur. 

(In the Foreign-Statesmen Series.) The best English book en Cavour 

at present. 

(See also The Liberation of Italy, 1814-70, by the same authoress, 

1895. An excellent brief history. English readers desiring to know 

the history of the Risorgimento should begin with this book and then 

go on to Bolton King's History of Italian Unity.) 

Marzo-Ferro = Ma.rzo-FeTro (da Girolamodi). Un periodo di storia di 

Sicilia. Palermo. 1863. 
*Massari's Casi = Massari (Giuseppe). I Casi di Napoli. 1849. 
Massari's V. £. = Massari (Giuseppe). La Vita di Vitt. Em. 1878. 2 vols. 

(Not very important. A few personal stories.) 
Mazade = Ma.zsLde (Charles de). Revue des deux Mondes. Feb. i, 1861. 
Le roi Francois II. el la rev. de Naples. 

(Good on the general political situation, internal and external, of 
the Neapolitan kingdom, 1859-60.) 
Mazzini — 'Ma.zzinx [G.). Scritti editi edinediti. 17 vols. Vols, ix.-xi., cover- 
ing this period, are rendered of special value by Saffi's Proemio {q.v.). 
Meiici = Medici (Gen. G.). Una pagijta di storia del 1S60. Palermo. 1869. 
(Medici defends his action in i860 against Bertani's strictures. 
Some letters.) 
Mf/etia = Melena (Elpis), i.e. Marie von Schwartz. Garibaldi, Recollections 
oi his public and private life. English translation. 1887. 



362 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

Melena, 1861 = Recollections of General Garibaldi ; comprising a visit to the 

Mediterranean isles of La Maddalena and Caprera. 1861. (Saunders, 

Otley & Co.) 

(Anonymous, but by Elpis Melena.) 
Mem. = Garibaldi (Giuseppe). Memorie autobiogvaiiche» Firenze. 1902. 

nth ed. 

(See note in bibliography under Dumas, above, for the character oi 

the alterations he made in this later edition of his memoirs. But this 

Italian edition is the only one for the events of t86o.) 
Men^liini = M.engh.\ni (Mario). La spedizione Garibaldina di Sicilia e di 

Napoli, net proclami, nelle correspondenze, nei diarii e nelle illustrazioni 

del tempo. 1907. 

(Quotations from North Italian newspapers of the time. Important 

diaries at end of book. The diary on pp. 419 ef seq. is by Canzio, as he 

told me himself.) 
Me'nme'is = Merimee (Prosper). Lettres a M. Panizzi. 1881. 
Messmeo = Messineo (Pietro). Per la commemorazione del XXX anni- 

versario del 4 Aprile i860. Palermo. 1890. 

(Paoluccl's account of April 4 is the more accurate of the 
two.) 
Mezzacapo — Pesci(\3go). II Generate Carlo Mezzacapo. Zanichelli. 1908. 
*Minnelli = Minnelli (Domenico) . A Ifio Balzani, or Extracts from the diary 

of a proscribed Sicilian. New York. 1861. 

(Autobiographical notes of a Sicilian patriot, 1 820-1 850 : some 

names are changed.) 
Mirabelli=i. Mirabelli (R.). Giornale d'ltalia. May 14, 1907, and 

Corriere delta Sera, July 29, answers to Luzio on Cavour and the 

Thousand. 

2. By same author — Per la storia rivoluzionaria del sessanta, 

Bologna. 1886. 
Mistr all — Mistrali (Franco). Storia popolare delta riv. di Sicilia, sul diario 

di un cacciatore delle Alpi. June i860. Milano. 
(Of no use.) 
*Mistrali's PeW. = Mistrale (Fr.). II Pellegrinaggio degli Operai a Caprera. 

Milano (Sanvito). 1861. 
Mowwi'er = Monnier (Marc). Garibaldi, Histoire de la conquite des deux 

Sidles. Paris. 1861. 
Monnier {Ital.) — Italian translation, with corrections and notes by Rocco 

'E,sca\on3i. = Rivoluzione delle due Sicilie. 
Morley ^Morley (John). Life of W. E. Gladstone. 1903. 
Motto = Motto (Raffaele). Relazione esatta delta spedizione di R. Pile, 

Pisa, tip. Citi. 1877. 

(A large section of it quoted in Saffi's Proemio, Mazzini, xi. p. Iv, 

et seq. Borne out by the skipper, Palmerini's evidence, do. pp. clxvl- 

clxix.) 
iVf MWiiy = Mundy (Rear- Admiral Sir Rodney). H.M.S. 'Hannibal' at 

Palermo and Naples, during the Italian Revolution, 1859-61. 

(A detailed and peculiarly reliable account of the affairs of Palermo 

by the great neutral who negotiated the armistice preceding the final 

departure of the Bourbon troops.) 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 363 

N. A. = Nuova Antologia. 

See CadoUni, Gandolfi, Orsini, Corleo, Baratieri, Finali, Rava, Artom, 
Romano-Catania. 
*Nap. III. et ritalie — L' Enipereicr Napoleon III. et I'ltalie. 1859. 

(Inspired pamphlet of February 1859. In part by La Gueronniere.) 
Nicolosi — Wicolosi (C). L'arte militare Garibaldina. Rivista di Fanteria, 
1903, pp. 468-508. 

(On Garibaldian tactics, Introduction of principle of ' rushes.') 
Nicotera = 'M.a.WLO (M.). Biografia di Giovanni Nicotera. 
Nievo — Mantovani (Dino). II poeta soldato : Ippolito Nievo, 1 831-61. 

(Life of the poet Nievo, one of the Thousand. Contains important 
letters by him from Palermo.) 
*Nievo's Amori = 'Nievo (Ipp.). Gli amori Garibaldini. Milano. i860. 

(Nievo's campaign poems of 1859.) 
*Nisco's Fr. I. — Nisco (Niccola) . II Reame di Napoli sotto Francesco /, 

1893- 
*Nisco's Ferd. II. = Nisco (Niccola). Gli ultimi trentasei anni del Reame 

di Napoli. Vol. it. Ferdinando II. 1897. 
A'^wco's JPr. 77. = Nisco (Niccola). Vol. iii. Francesco II. 1894. 

(Nisco's history is very good for a history written by a contemporary: 
and he had access to many of the Neapolitan archives.) 
Nwwo/an = Nuvolari (Giuseppe). Come la penso. Milano. 1881. 

(One of the Thousand, and one of Garibaldi's intimates of the 
Maddalena-Caprera group. Some curious incidents recorded, but only 
the first-hand parts of the book of value.) 
O. B.'s La il7asa = Bonaf ede (Oddo). Cenno Storico sul Generale G. La 
Masa. Verona. 1879. 

(Defence of La Masa's conduct, with documents, by Oddo, author of 
I Mille, who later took name of Bonafede. Most of the documents 
are also in La Masa {Sic.) q.v.) 
Oi^o = Oddo (Giacomo). I Mille di Marsala. 1863. 

(Not very accurate. The best parts of it are derived from La 

Masa {Sic.) q.v.) 

Oliphant — Oli-phant (Laurence). Episodes in a life of adventure. 1887, 

pp. 165 et seq. An episode with Garibaldi. See Appendix E. above. 

Oliveri = Ohvexi (G. M.). Una pagina alia storia dei Mille. Palermo. 

1876. 

(Some local Sicilian evidence.) 
Ollivier = Ollivier (Emile). L' Empire Liberal. 1897. 

(Interesting on diplomacy, the policy of Napoleon III. and the 
things he knows about, but his account of Garibaldi's expedition most 
inaccurate, and from third-hand authorities.) 
Orsini = Documenti inediti del Gen. Giordano Orsini, by Francesco Guar- 
dione. A^. A., July i, 1907. 

(Important for the diversion to Corleone.) 
Orsini {Cenno) = Cenno biografico del Generale Giordano Orsini. Palermo. 
1906. 

(Despatches passing between Garibaldi and Orsini during the 
diversion to Corleone and Orsini' s return to Palermo.) 
Pa/n»er5/on = Evelyn Ashley. Pabnerston. 



364 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

Panizzi = Lettere ad A. Panizzi. 1880. 

(A fine selection from his correspondence with Italian patriots of all 
parties, made from the Panizzi MS. in the British Museum, q.v.) 

Panizzi' s Lif e^'Pa.mzzi {Sit K.). Li/e 0/, by L. Fagan. 1880. 

Paolucct, Pi7o = Paolucci (G.). Rosolino Pilo. In A. S. Sic, 1899. 

Paolucci, Corrao = Paojucci (G.). Giovanni Corrao. In A. S. Sic, igoo. 

Paolucci, i??so = Paolucci (G.). Da Riso a Garibaldi. Separate reprint 
from A. S. Sic, 1904. 

Also partly published In Riv. di Roma, January 7 and March 18, 1900. 
(Signor Paolucci' s scholarly work is quite indispensable for the 
proper studj' of Garibaldi's expedition.) 

Paolucci, Riv. di ffoma = Paolucci (Giuseppe), Rivista di Roma, September 
23, 1900. 

(For Sicilian conspiracy and revolt, 1850-1859.) 

*Papa e Congresso = La Guerronniere (sic) (Di. M.). / Papa e il Congresso, 
Milano. 1859. 

Pasolini — Giuseppe Pasolini, 1 815-1876, memorie raccoUe da suo figlio. 
Page references in notes above are to the English translation by the 
Dowager Countess of Dalhousie. Longmans. 1885. 

Pavesi = Lettere di Garibaldi a Cittadini Pavesi. Pavia. 1907. 

Peayc? == Trevelyan (G. M.). War-journals of Garibaldi's Englishman. 
Publication of parts of J. W. Peard's journal of 1 859-1 860 in the 
Cornhill Magazine, * January 1908, and June 1908. 

Pevini — Vex'mi (O.). La spedizione dei Mille. Milano. 1861. 

(Written from numerous MS. accounts, diaries, &c., of the Mille, 
some of which have never yet been printed — and from verbal informa- 
tion of the actors themselves.) 

Pf'f saMo = Persano (Ammiraglio C. dl). Diario privato-politico-militave. 
1880. 

(Most important on Cavour's secret orders to the fleet about Gari- 
baldi's expedition.) 

Persigny = Menioires du Due de Per^igny. Paris. 1896. 

Piana dei Greci — Pettdt. (Gioacchino) , Piana dei Greet nella riv. Siciliana. 
1 86 1. Palermo. 

(Important local record, but author was at Palermo, not Piaoa, 
during the events he records. Hence certain errors noticed by 
Costatini, q.v., pp. 48, 49, who was in Piana at the time.) 

Pianell = 'Fh\{5SQnt (G. de). // Generale Pianell e il suo tempo. Verona. 
1902. 

Pianell, TVfem. = Pianell (Generale). Memorie. Firenze. Barbera. 1902. 

Pietraganzili — Pietva.g3inzili (Salvo di). II Piemonte e la Sicilia, 1850-60. 
2 vols. 1902. 

(An active patriot of Termini, first-hand evidence on events in that 
town, Camp at Gibilrossa, La Masa, Riso and local Sicilian affairs.) 

Pi7o = Venosta (Felice). Rosolino Pilo. Milano. 1863. 
(Of little use.) 

Pittaluga — Pitt3.\u%a. (Gen. Giovanni). La Diversions. 1904. 
(Important for Talamone and Zambianchi's expedition.) 

Po^no = Giudice (A. U. del). Liriche i Lettere inediie di Alessandro e 
Carlo Poerio. Torino. 1899. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 365 

*Pol. = Politecnico (Periodical). Milan, i860. See pp. 284-308 for 

Bertani's Cacc, q.v. 
Principe Nap. = Vayra (Pietro). II Principe Napoleone e I' Italia. Torino. 
1S91. 

(An important statement of Italy's debt to Prince Jerome.) 
Pungolo = Il Pungolo (Naples paper), July 5, 1907. 

(Contains letter of Medici to Cosenz of May 10, i860.) 
Quarterly = Quarterly Review. 1879. 

Queen's Letters = The Letters of Queen Victoria. 3 vols. 1907. 
Racioppi = Ra.cioT[>pl (Glacomo). Moti di Basilicata. Napoli. 1867. 

(For the general condition of the Neapolitan army and provinces, 
1849-1860.) 
Raffaele — 'Ra.&a.ele (G.). Rivelazioni storiche delta riv. dal 1848 al i860. 
Palermo. 1883. 

(Much detailed information about the state of Sicily under Manis- 
calco. Statement about the alleged use of torture in Cefalu prison, 
for which see also Sansone, pp. 145-180 ; Marco and Guardione, ii. 
p. 252. I do not know how far RafEaele is to be credited on the 
sub] ect.) 
Rass. Naz. =Rassegna Nazionale. January i, 1905. 

Che cosa fu detto in un colloquio storico ? Ugo Pescl. 
(On the interview of Victor Emmanuel and Cavour at Bologna, 
May 2, i860.) 
*i?aua = Rava (Luigi) . Fanti, Garibaldi e L. C. Farini, N. A., Sept. i, 
1903. 

(For October 1859.) 
Reclamo Meli = Reclame dei tipografi Meli e Carini. No date, but appar- 
ently i85o. 

(Evidence about the secret press in Palermo in April-May i860.) 
*Reumont's Capponi = Reumont (A.) . Gino Capponi e il sua secolo. 2 vols. 
(For Tuscany, 1848-9, and 1859-60, and for criticisms by pro- 
vlnclalists and federalists on Italian unity, vol. ii. 131-148.) 
*Revel — 'Re\re\ (Genova di). // 1859 e V Italia Centrale. Miei Ricordi. 
Revel's da Ancona = 'Reve\ (Genova di). Da Ancona a Napoli. Miei 

Ricordi. Milano. 1892. 
Ricasoli ^'Ricz.soli (Baron). Lettere e documenti pubb. per cura di M, 
Tabarrini e A. Gotti. Firenze. 1887-95. 

(Is to Ricasoli what Chiala's work is to Cavour.) 
Risorg. = Il Risorgimento Italiano. 1908. 

(The historical Review of the Risorgimento, periodical, from March 
1908.) 
Riv. di Roma = Rivista di Roma (periodical). 
*Riv. Mil. It. = Rivista militare italiana. 1872-1877. 

(For able technical reviews of the Austrian official accounts of 1859, 
Krieg, q.v. See December 1872, January 1873, July 1874, April, 
May, July 1876, and February 1877, the latter specially about 
Garibaldi's operations in the Valtelline.) 
*Rodenberg = Rodenberg' s Deutsches Magazin, vol. I. pp. 214, 215. 1861. 
(Reminiscences of Garibaldi in London, 1854, by Alexander 
Herzen.) 



366 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

Romano-Catania, N. ^ . = Romano-Catania (G.). Rosolino Pilo e la riv. 

Sic. del 1848-9. N. A., November 1904. 
Romano-Catania, A. S. Sz'c. = Romano-Catania (G.)- D'un dramma sopra 

Rosolino Pilo. A. S. Sic, 1905, fasc. III-IV, cf. to Paolucci, Pile. 
R. S. del R.=Rivista Storica del Risorgimento. Vol. iil. fasc. 3 (1898). 
Lettere di Garibaldi avanti e durante la sped, dei Mille da Angela Vesen- 
tini. 

(Important letters to Besana and Finzi showing connection of 
government with Sicilian expedition, through medium of the Dire- 
zione, Milione di fucili ; now printed in Ciampoli, sub-loc. ; references 
in my notes are to Ciampoli. For Finzi' s letter of September 6, 1869, 
see Fauche (P.).) 
i?osz = Rosi (M.). II risorgimento italiano e I'azione d'un patriota cospiratore 
e soldato. 1906. 

(A life of Mordini. Quotes the secret reports of the Piedmontese 
consul in Sicily, from the Arch, di Stato, Turin.) 
Rusconi = Rusconi (Ferdinando) . 19 anni di vita di un Garibaldino. 1870. 
i?«sse// = Spencer Walpole. Life of Lord John Russell. 1889. 
*Riistow i85g = Guerra d' Italia del 1859. Milano. i860. 

Translation of Der italienische Krieg. 1859. Zurich, i860. 
i^MSfozw = Riistow (W.). La guerra italiana del i860 descritta politicamente 
e militarmente, con 8 carte e piani. Versione del Dott. G. Bizzozzero. 
Milano, tip. G. Civelli. 1862. 

Translation of Erinnerungen aus dem italienischen Feldzuge von 
i860. 

(Riistow took part in the later events of the expedition after the 
taking of Palermo. He is a competent military historian even for 
the early part which he did not witness.) 
*Sacchi's visit = ?>a.cchi (Luigi). Una visita all' isola di Caprera del pittore 

Luigi Sacchi. Milano, Salvi. i860. 
Sa;^ = Saf& (Aurelio). Ricordi e Scritti. 1892-1904. 
Saffi's Proemio = Saf6. (Aurelio). Preface to the Scritti editi ed inedUi of 
Mazzini [q.v.). 

(Preface to Vol. xi. dealing with Sicily and i860 is most valuable, 
a mine of documents. Reprinted also in Saffi, Ricordi e scritti.) 
Sampieri = Sampieri (Generale Domenico). Storia e storie delta prima sped, 
in Sicilia. Venezia, tip. del Tempo, 1887, and Roma, tip. FaUli, 

1893- 

(One of the Thousand. Most important on Marsala and Calatafimi, 
containing two accounts of that battle by Neapolitan officers present 
Corrects Baratieri and others.) 
*5a»d = George Sand. Joseph Garibaldi. Paris. 1859. 
(A short and excellent eulogy, dated July 4, 1859.) 
*Sansone — 'Sa.nsonQ (Alfonso). Cospirazioni e rivolte di Fr. Bentivegna e 

compagni. Palermo. 1891. 
*Sa/)n = Bilotti (P. E.). La sped, di Sapri. {Da Geneva a Sanza.) 1907. 
Scrittori Manduriani = Gigli (Giuseppe). Scritiori Manduriani. 1896, 

(Contains a short biography of Lacaita.) 
*Settembrini = Se\XQvabx'im (Luigi). Ricordanze delta mia vita. 1881. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 367 

Stracusa = 'De Benedictis (Em.). Siracusa sotto la mala signoria degli 

ultimi Bovboni. Torino. 1861. 
Sirtori — 'De Castro (G.). Giuseppe Sirtori. Milano, Dumolard. 1892. 

(Contains quotations from important letter of Majocclie about 

Calatafimi and Palermo, Sirtori and Cavour.) 
Sirtori Com. —Sirtori (Giuseppe). Al Comitato Italiano. 1851. Londra. 
(Sirtori's anti-Mazzinian tract, a plea for unity. Shows course of 

his political development.) 
Sorbelli = ?>orbe\\i (A.). II Museo Storico dei Mille a Bologna. 
Spaventa = '?i^3kveT\.t3. (Silvio). Dal 1848 al 1861. 1898. Napoli. 
Stamp. Cland. — Stamps clandestine del i860. Collection of the proclama- 
tions and fly-leaves issued by secret Committee of Palermo in i860. 

Collection Lodi, Arch. stor. Patria, Palermo. 
Stamp. Off. = Stampati in fogli volanti cditi negli anni 1 860-1. Parte 

offlciale. 

(A fine collection of the official proclamations of the successive 

governments of 1 860-1. Collection Lodi, Arch. Stor. Patria, Palermo.) 
Stiav elli — StiaveWi (G.). Ganbaldi nella letteratura italiana. 

(This book is, as it declares itself, ' partly an anthology, partly a 

bibliography.' Though far from complete, and not up to date even 

in the 1907 edition, it is valuable.) 
Stillman's Cns^i = Stillman (W. J.). Frauceso Crispi. 1899. 

(Not documented.) 
*Storia anedd. = Storia aneddotica politico-militare della guerra 1859. 

Milano. 1859. 
Termini = Rapidi cenni e doc. storici della rivohizione del i860 riguardunti la 

cittd di Termini. Sig. A. B. e M. G. Palermo. 1861. 
Thayer = Thayer (W. Roscoe). Throne-Makers. 1899. 

(Contains an excellent appreciation of Garibaldi by one of the most 

learned of Risorgimento scholars.) 
Thouvenel = T\i.ou^en&\ (L.). Le secret de I'Empereur. 1889. 

(Contains important correspondence of Thouvenel, foreign minister, 

with Gramont, French ambassador at Rome, i860.) 
*Tivaroni ^ms^. = Tivaroni (Carlo). L' Italia durante il dominio Austriaco 

1892. 
Tivaroni It. — Tivaroni (Carlo). L' Italia degli Italiani. 
Trei'^scAfte = Treitschke. // Conte di Cavour. Translation from the 

German. Firenze. 1873. 
(Excellent.) 
*Trevelyan's Gar. i?ome = Treve]yan (G. M.). Garibaldi's Defence of the 

Roman Republic. Longman. 1907. 
Trinity = The Trinity of Italy, by an English Civilian for eight years in 

official connexion ivith the Court of Naples. 1867. (Edward Moxon 

&- Co.) 

(A well-informed, picturesque and thoughtful study of the condition 

and government of the Neapolitan provinces just before and after the 

revolution of i860.) 
Tupper =:Tu-pTpev (Martin). My life as an author. 1886. 

(For Peard's youth at Oxford ; see also Pycroft's Oxford Memories, 

i. p. 48.) 



368 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

Twr?' = Pecorini-Manzoni (Emilio). Stefano Tilrr. igo2. 

(Not always accurate, e.g., says Tiirr was present at Varese and 
S. Fermo, and does not tell ns much that is not in the works of Carlo 
P. Manzoni and Tiirr himself. But does not repeat the extravagant 
claims made by those writers on behalf of Tiirr as Garibaldi's military 
adviser between Calatafimi and Palermo.) 
*Turr's Arrest. = Tnrx (General). Arrestatton, prods et condamnation 
raconUs par lui-meme. Paris. 1863. 

(The incident of his arrest by the Austrians during the Crimean war.) 
Tiirr' s Da Quarto = Turr (Gen.). Da Quarto a Marsala. 

(Tiirr's own account of events at Talamone and Marsala.) 
Tiirr' s Dz'y. = Pecorini-Manzoni (Carlo). Storia della 15a Divisione Tiirr. 
1876. 

(Contains many valuable documents. Far too much inclined to 
attribute everything to Tiirr.) 
Tiirr's Risposta — Tnxx (Gen.). Risposta all' opuscolo Bertani. 1869. 
Milano. 

(Reply to censures in Ire Politiche ; a description of his own conduct 
on the expedition.) 
Uzielli = \Jziel\i (Gustavo). Letters home, from Sicily, June i860. 

Published in the Veterano. 1908. 
*ValIe's V. G. ?7. = Valle (G. Della). Varese, Garibaldi, Urban nel 1859. 

Varese. 1863. 
Fa^ewMe = Varenne (Louis de la). La riv. Sic. et I'expM. de Gar. Paris. 
i860. 

(A good historical introduction, followed by a defence of his Torture 
en Sicile, q.v. below.) 
*Varenne's CAassewrs = Varenne (L. de la). Les chasseurs des Alpes. 
i860. 

(Not much use.) 
*Varenne's Torture ^Yarenne (L. de la). La torture en Sicile. Paris, i860. 
(This much disputed work is defended by him in Varenne, q.v., 
above. But Ra-ffaele, pp. 317-310, shows the weakness of his defence.) 
'^Vecchi's Caprera = Yecch.i (C. Augusto). Garibaldi at Caprera. i86'?. 

(The home life and intimate talk of Garibaldi in 1861, by one of his 
oldest and closest friends. My references are to the English transla- 
tion, but I have studied the Italian Garibaldi e Caprera, which is more 
complete.) 
Ven. No. i — No. unico Garibaldi. 1907. Venezia. 

(Contains a letter from Tangier, 1850 ; Garibaldi's orders to Bixio 
for sailing of the Lombardo from Talamone to Sicily ; and a letter od 
Calatafimi.) 
Fewosia = Venosta (Giovanni Visconti). Ricordi di Gioventii. Milano, 
1906. 3rd ed. 
(A delightful and valuable book, on society in Milan, the Valtelline 
and Lombardy in general, 1 848-1 860.) 
V. M. = Ventisette Maggio, i860 ; numero unico. Palermo. 27 Maggio. 
1885. 

(See Campo, Lettere, for criticisms of parts of this important collec- 
tion of memoirs.) 




BIBLIOGRAPHY 369 

ViUayi — VU.\s,T\ (Raffaele). Cospirazione e rivolta. 1881. 

(First-hand authority for the internal movements of Sicily, especially 
at the Messina end of the island. For Pilo's landing, &c. Contains, 
pp. 373-375, Garibaldi's important letter of September 29, 1859.) 
*Viollet-h-duc = Wio\\et-\Q-d.VLC (E. M.). Lettres sur la Sidle a propos des 
dvenemenfs de juin et de juillet, i860. Paris, i860. 

(Written and published i860, but based on notes made during a tour 
in Sicily prior to 1848.) 
Vismaya = YismaTSL (Antonio). Bzbliografia di Garibaldi. Como, tip. 
C. Franchi. 1S91. 

Part of E. Motta's Collezione storica bibliografica. 
Walpole's Twenty-Five Years = Walpole (Sir Spencer). History of Twenty- 
Five Years. Vol. i. 

(Chap. iv. is one of the best accounts of diplomatic events, 1859- 
1860.) 
Whitaker = 'Whxt3,'k.&T (Tina, nee Scalia). Sicily and England, 1848-1870. 
Constable. 1907. 

(Details of Italian and especially Sicilian exiles and their likes in 
England, from family and personal knov/ledge.) 
WM^eAoMse = Whitehouse (H. R.). Collapse of the Kingdom of Naples. 
New York. Bonnell, Silver & Co. 1899. 
(Carefully done and useful.) 
fFwwmg'iow- iMgra/w = Winnington-Ingram (Rear- Admiral H. F.). Hearts 
of Oak. 18S9. 

(Memoirs of his life. Chap. xiv. contains important evidence about 
the rising of April 4, and the landing at Marsala and capture of 
Palermo, all of which Ingram witnessed.) 
Zanichelli's Cavoiir — Za.nichel\i (D.). Cavour. Firenze. 1905. 

(A shrewd summary of the events of his life.) 
Zasio — Da Marsala al VoUurno. Ricordi di E. Z. = Zasio, Emilio, a 

Brescian, one of the Thousand. 
Ze«si = Zeusi (Goppelli) ( = Giuseppe Zolli, one of the Thousand). Gari- 
baldi e i Mille. Venezia. i860. 



CONTEMPORARY NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS 
CONSULTED 

Arlecchino = L'Arlecchino. Sicilian newspaper, June 11, i860, et seq. 

Civ. catt. = Civilta cattolica Clerical organ. 

Corr. Merc- —Corriere Mercantile, i860. Genova. 

(Cavourian. Contained the article reprinted in 1861 as Bertani 
comp., q.v.) 
D. N. = Daily News. 
Diritto — Italian Democratic journal. 

Forbice = Forbice, la. Sicilian newspaper of June i860, et seq. 
Giornale del Regno delle due Sicile. i860. 
Giorn. Off. .Sic — Giornale Officiale di Sicilia, 1859-1860. 

(The paper begins again under the new regime on June 7, i860.) 

B n 



370 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

/. I.. N. = Illustrated London News for iS6o. 

(Pictures and reports of Garibaldi's campaign from the entrance 
into Palermo onwards. Their principal artist and war correspondent 
was Frank Vizetelly, who lived on intimate terms with many of the 
Garibaldini, from whose narratives he made up his reports. ) 
L' Illustration. Paris, i860. 

(Not much in text, but good and fairly accurate sketches.) 
Mondo Illustrato = Il Mondo Illustrato for i860. 

(Illustrated paper on lines of our Illustrated London News. First 
two years of it were 1847-8, third year began July 7, i860. Its 
pictures are not very good, but are fairly accurate. Its text includes 
D. F. Botto's account of the taking of Palermo, with some details not 
found elsewhere.) 
M. Post = Morning Post. 

(Enjoyed on the Continent the reputation of being the ' Giornale 
Ofdcioso del Palmerston.') 
Movimento. 
Nazione. 
Opinione. 

(Cavourian. See Dina, for a reprint of many of its most important 
articles.) 
Times. 

(The Times' special correspondent, Eber the Hungarian, sent over 
long reports which are the best single authority on the taJnng of 
Palermo on May 27 and the following days — an operation in which 
Eber took part.) 
Un . It. = Unita Italiana. Democratic. 



IT. MANUSCRIPTS 

I. M3S. BELONGING TO PRIVATE PERSONS 

Canzio M5S. = *i. Copies of Garibaldi's letters from December i860 
onwards. 
*2. Accounts kept by Garibaldi of his farming at Caprera, 
both before and after i860. 
Account of purchase of part of Caprera in 1855. 
*3. Accounts kept by Garibaldi of his expenses and receipts 
on voyages of 1852-4. 
4. Relazione sul Progetto di Legge per estendere ai 64 di 
Talamone la decorazione dei Mille. 
Delia Cerda M5. = Unprinted lecture by Santostefano dei Marchesi della 

Cerda on the Sicilian Exiles, 1859 to i860. 
Elia M.S. = Letter of A. Elia to author, absolutely denying alleged boarding 
of Lombardo by Carabinieri on night of May 5 as narrated in Becchio, 
q.v., and giving details of course from Talamone to Marsala. 
Mario MSS. — Papers of Jessie White Mario, kindly shown me by Mr. T, F. 
Unwin. 




BIBLIOGRAPHY 371 

Peard's Journal MS. = MS. journal for 1859-60, of J. W. Peard, ' Gari- 
baldi's Englishman.' Written up in his note-book during the cam- 
paigns, not every evening, but every few days. Most kindly lent me 
by Miss Peard, together with the following : — 

*Peard M5.= MS. narrative of Alpine campaign by J. W. Peard, 1859. 
Based on his Journal, q.v. 

Rotolo MSS. = Letters and dispatches addressed to Padre (comandante) 
Rotolo, now Cav. Agostino Rotolo, in whose possession they are. 
Letters from Garibaldi, Sirtori and La Masa, June 2, i860. 

Lord J. Russell MSS. = Letters of Lord John Russell to Sir James Hudson, 
i860. In possession of Hon. Rollo Russell, who kindly allowed me 
to consult them. Important supplement to official dispatches 
published in Br. Pari. Papers (q.v.). 

Lady Russell M5S. = Letters of Poerio, Sir James Hudson and others to 
Lady Russell, i860. In possession of Lady Agatha Russell, who 
kindly allowed me to consult them. 

*Schwabe MSS. — Papers of late Mrs. Schwabe, property of Lady Lock- 
wood, who kindly lent them to me. 

Mrs. Schwabe's Journal of Visit to Caprera, May 1861. 

Account by her gardener, Webster, of his visit to Caprera, 

November 9, 1861. 
Poem of Garibaldi on Caprera, 1863. 

*Shaen MSS. — Letters of Mazzini in possession of Miss Margaret Shaen, 
who kindly lent me copies. Includes copy of letter of Mazzini to 
James Stansfeld, January 30, 1859. 

Spring Rice ikfS5.= Letter to author by Sir Cecil Spring Rice, reporting 
stories told him by Sir James Hudson re secret history of i860. 

Taylor MSS. =Mazzini's letters to his English friends the Taylors. In 
possession of Mrs. Osier, Birmingham, and her uncle, Mr. Malleson, 
who kindly lent me copies. 

II. BOLOGNA MSS. 

(Copies of the Bixio MSS.) 

Bixio MS. DiiJtno = Journal kept by Bixio in his pocket-book. May 5- 
June 8, i860, beginning with jottings with regard to details of organi- 
sation for embarkation, night of May 5. Many of the most important 
parts of this diary have not been printed in Guerzoni's Bixio or else- 
where. 

*Bixio MS., Lettere, 1859 = Letters from Bixio during campaign in the 
Alps. 

Bixio MS., Lettere, 1860 = Letters from Bixio from Sicily. Partially 
printed in Guerzoni's Bixio and Bixio Com., but some important parts 
have not been printed. 

III. GENOA MSS. 

Bibl. Civ.=Biblioieca Civica. 

MSS. Socc. Gar. — Soccorso a Garibaldi. Genova. Bibl. Civ. D bis. 4. 4. 
14. (Not important.) 



372 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 



IV. LONDON MSS. 

Panizzi M5S = British Museum, addit. 1900-1905, 36714-36729 

Correspondence of A. Panizzi with Italian patriots of all parties and 
their principal English sympathisers. A most important collection, 
of which part has been published in Panizzi {Letter e), q.v. 

V. MILAN MSS. 

The following important MSS. are kept in the Museo del Risorgimento, 
in the Castello. Except the first two [Simonetta MS. and Libra degli 
or dint), all are in the famous Archivio Bertani. 

* Simonetta MS. = Simonetta (Francesco). Giornali dei Cacciatori a Cavallo 
o Guide del Generate Garibaldi. 1859. 

(On this important MS. much of Carrano is based. Important 
passages from it will be found quoted at length in De Cristofons, q.v. 
In my notes above, the pagination refers to the MS. copy, as the 
original has no pagination ; both are bound up together.) 
*Lihro degli ordini : Prima Regg^o Cacc>'' dell' Alpi, Campagna 1859. 
A B.= Archivio Bertani {secondo elenco). 

A. B., *Plico VIII. no. 120, doc. 8, contains three unpublished narratives, 
by participants, of the battles of Varese and Como. 
*i. Cacc. delle Alpi. 20 regg. 8 compia. 

(Story of both battles.) 
*2. Relazione delta Battaglia di Varese. 

(Also of S. Fermo.) 
*3. Migliavacca. 

(A most important, too much neglected, account of Varese and 
S. Fermo by Filippo Migliavacca, captain of the 2nd company of 
Medici's batt., with very careful detailed maps, which were repro- 
duced in Cadolini. The second of these maps (San Fermo) is 
docketed as no. loi in Plico VIII., but it is really part of No. 120.) 
A. B., *Plico VIII. no. 120, doc. 12 = Carlo Gorini a Bertani, 15 Feb., i860. 

(Letter telling story of Varese and San Fermo.) 
A. B., *Plico IX. 1859 = Carte del Servizio Sanitario Cacc. delle Alpi. 
A. B., *PlicQ X. 1859, no. 34. Lettera di Ben. Cairoli, September 25, 1859 
A. B., Plichi A. B. C. D. E.^Autografi. Celebrita. 
Plico A., no. II. Dumas' Letter re Memorie. 
Plico B., sec. c. Dolfi's Letters. 
Plico B., sec. G. Reports from the Marches. 
Plico B., sec. H. No. i, Buschi's Letter. 

*Plico D. Dossier of the plot to release Settembrini, 1855-6. 
A. B., Plico XII. no. 12. Letter from Messina conspirators, March 26, 
i860. 

No. 13. Dossier of offers of service, and replies. May i860. 

No. 14. Dossier Zambianchi, 1861 

No. 18. Statement about loss of the ammunition on May 5 

(reprinted, Mazzini, xi.) 
No. 19. Dumas' 'telegram of May 4, i860. 
Nos. 24, 29, 31, 41, 42, 44 are also interesting. 
No. 38. Preparations for insurrection on mainland of Naples, 
June i860 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 373 

A. B., Plico XIII. May i860. 133 Letters, mostly of application to join 

Garibaldi. 
A. B., Plico XIV. June i860. Over 300 letters, ditto. 
A. B., Plico XV. July i860. Numerous letters, ditto. 

(The subsequent innumerable pliclii are chiefly the accounts, 
receipts, orders and whole business papers of Bertani's Cassa Cenirale 
of i860.) 
Garibaldi's Letters to Bertani, 1851-60. 

(Mostly printed in Mario's Bertani. But some are not.) 

VI. NAPLES MSS. 

Landi MS. =Relazione giUstificativa su le operazioni eseguite con la colovna 
mobile agli ordini del Generate Landi dal 6 al ij Maggio i860. In the 
Archivio Storia Patria of Naples (93 Piazza Dante). Copy presented 
by General Pittaluga ; with pencil notes at side by G. C. Abba and 
General Pittaluga. 

(Most important for the battle of Calatafimi.) 

VII. PALERMO MSS. 

Polizia = Archivio di Stato. Minister per gli affari di Sicilia. Polizia. 
i860, Nos. 1237, 1238, 1239. *i857. No. 1212. 

(Most important collection ; correspondence of Neapolitan Minister 
for Sicily with Castelcicala and Lanza at Palermo, and with 
provincial intendants of provinces. Deals with matters that we 
should call military and political as well as mere police. Some of 
these documents have been printed by Signori Paolucci and Guardione 
and the L'Ora newspaper, but such publications form only a very small 
proportion of these very rich archives.) 

Br. Cons. M55. = Papers of the British Consulate, Palermo, 1850-60. 
Official letters of Mr. Goodwin to the British Minister at Naples, 
including his ' Political Journal ' of Palermo, May 19, ef seq. i860. 

(By the kindness of Mr. Churchill and of the Foreign Office at home 
I have been permitted to study these important papers.) 

Sior. Patria MSS. = A rchivio Storia Patria. Collection Lodi. Case con- 
taining Manoscritti varii riferibili agli avvenimenti Politici di Sicilia 
ne' secoli XVIII e XIX. 

(Mostly of the date earlier than i86o, but contain two letters of 
Pilo's, April 18 and May 18, i860 ; a copy of the Riassunto del pro- 
cesso pe' fatti del 4 Aprile in the Arch, di Stato ; and some autographs 
of Garibaldi's and others, mostly rough copies of Proclamations, &c., 
elsewhere published.) 

Palermo National Museum. Historical Room. Collection of proclama- 
tions, pictures, relics, &c., of i860, and old maps of Palermo. 

VIII. ROME MSS. 

Savi MS. = Manuscript diary of Savi, a Genoese of the Thousand, kept on 
the spot during the campaign, on separate sheets of paper of different 
colours and sizes. Signor Menghini kindly allowed me to use this 
important authority. 



374 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

Mazz. Letters V. £".= Unpublished letters of Mazzini to Bertani, Grillenzoni, 
Crispi, Garibaldi and others, 1859-60, in the Vitt. Em., Rome ; Signer 
Menghini, who is now carrying out the work of publishing the national 
edition of Mazzini's immense correspondence, most kindly allowed me 
to work on these. I must also thank Signor Nathan for his part in 
granting that permission. 

V. E. R. M.=Biblioteca Vitforio Etiianucle MSS. Risorgimento. 

V. E. R. M. 82 = La riv. Siciliana del i860. Narrazione storica. 

(A first-hand account of Garibaldi's entry into Palermo, clearly by 
Eber, whose narrative in the Times is almost identical.) 

V. E. R. M. 193, 2 = Copy of the letter given in CiampoU, p. 129, as 
Marzo 5. It is indeed Marzo 5 in the copy, but most obviously the 
original was written on Maggio 5, as the whole sense shows. 

V. E. R. M. 225 = Garibaldi MSS. 225, 95, Proclamation to Romans. 
Copy only, date Genova, May 5. 

Album dei Mille. In the V. E. photographs of the greater part of the 
Thousand, the impression left is that of intellectuality, character and 
cultivation. 



III. NOTES OF CONVERSATIONS 

In studying the history of fifty years ago, an important source of 
evidence besides books and MSS. is found in the oral testimony of survivors 
and of those who knew the actors well. I have not neglected this source, 
and have made it a practice to take down notes on the spot during conversa- 
tion, and if necessary write out the notes again carefully within twenty-four 
hours afterwards. 

In the following list of ' Conversations * {Conv.), this practice has in each 
case been adhered to, and I have notes taken at the time to show for every 
Conversation used as evidence. In this list I have not put down my 
conversations with modern historians, as Signopi Luzio and Paolucci, useful 
as those have been to me, but have confined the list to interviews with 
actors in or witnesses of the events related. 

Conv. Armaforte = ]<iotes of Conversation with Antonio Armaforte 
of the squadre of Parco, who was with Garibaldi's column. May 21 
onwards. Important for Garibaldi's exact route from Renda to 
Palermo. 

Conv. B eltrani — Converssition with Senatore Martino Beltrani Scalia, of 
Palermo. 

Conv. Cadolini = Notes of conversation with Senatore G. Cadolini (veteran 
of 1849, '59, '60, and '66). 

Conv. Calisti = l>iotes of conversation with Matteo Calisti of the Sicilian 
squadre. 

Conv. Ca.mpo = Notes of conversation with Giuseppe Campo, of the well- 
known patriotic Sicilian family, and one of the Thousand. 

Conv. Canzio — Notes of my conversations with General Canzio, one of the 
Thousand, Garibaldi's son-in-law, taken down at Iiis dictation, at 
Genoa, January 1907 and January 1908. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 375 

Conv. Delia Cerda ^Notes of conversation with Santostefano dei Marchesi 

della Cerda. 

(In i860 his family, well known in Palermitan Liberal society, lived 

in a house just opposite the Castellamare, whence he saw many 

curious things.) 
Cow. £«§•.= Notes of conversations with an Englishman, who served 

Garibaldi in Sicily, after June i860. (He modestly desires anonymity, 

though he is well known to many English and Italians and was a 

personal friend of Garibaldi's by the title of good service rendered.) 
Conv. iT^iffl = Notes of conversation with Elia (A.), one of the Thousand. 
Conv. Guarneri — 'Notes of conversation with Senator Andrea Guarneri. 
*Conv. Marchetti — Notes of conversation with Mr. Marchetti, now of 

Halifax, a veteran of the Alpine campaign, 1859, who ran away from 

school, aet. 15, to become one of the Cacciatori of the Varese and Como. 
Conv. Mineo = 'Notes of conversation with Signor Giacomo Mineo of 

Marsala, who witnessed the landing of the Thousand. 
Conv. Paternostro ^Notes of conversation with Signor Paternostro, in 

May i860, a leader of squadre of Corleone ; present at Renda, Parco, 

GibUrossa and Palermo. 
Conv. Pitrd = 'Notes of conversation with Professor G. Pitre, of Palermo, 

the celebrated Sicilian antiquary, who was a boy in Palermo at the 

time of Garibaldi's entry. 
Conv. Principale — Notes of conversation with Gaetano Principale, Sicilian, 

who was on the night march from Gibilrossa to Palermo. Important 

as to route. 
Conv. RiccioUi = 1^0163 of conversations with Ricciotti Garibaldi and his 

family. 
Conv. Rotolo = Notes of Conversation with Cav. Agostino Rotolo, the Padre 

Rotolo of i860, who acted as an officer of Sicilians in May i860, in 

spite of his cloth. 
Conv. Salinas = Notes of conversation with Commendatore Salinas, a boy 

in Sicily in i860. 
Conv. Tedaldi = Notes of conversation with Colo, Cav. Fr. Tedaldi, who 

was a boy of eighteen in his father's house at the Quattro Venti, 

Palermo, when Garibaldi entered ; fought May 27-9 in Palermo. 
Conv. Tiirr = Notes of conversation with General Tiirr. 
Conv. FfMz = Conversation with Bartolo Vitali, a Sicilian of the Thousand 

Important for march from Renda to Parco, May 21. 

SICILIAN POETRY ON EVENTS OF APRIL-MAY 1860 

1. Teodoru e Rosalba, o sia la rivoluzioni di lu i860. 

(An epic poem in fourteen cantos. All the principal incidents and 
personages from April 4 to the armistice are brought in.) 
Printed in Poesie Sicilians di Carmelo Piola. 

2. La Trasuta di Garibardi a Palermu. 

(Poem on May 27, i860. Reprinted in Ventisette Maggio, q.v.) 

3. La Vittoria di Garibaldi in Sicilia e la caduta di Franciscu Borbuni. Di 

Giuseppe Emma da Partinicu. Palermo. 1S83. 
(Poem o£ 533 stanzas.'* 



376 GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 

4. L'Assarlu di lu 4 Aprili (see above ia list of books). 

(For shorter poems in Sicilian dialect written during i860 itself, see 
the collection Poesie in dialetto Siciliano stampate durante la riv. del 
i85o, in the collection Lodi, Afck. Star. Patvia, Palermo.) 

ITALIAN' AND ENGLISH POETRY 

Garibaldi (Versi e prose). Giosufe Carducci. 

Rapsodie Ganbaldina. II. Giovanni Marradi. 

La Nolle di Caprera. Gabriele D'Annunzio. 

Poems before Congress. Last Poems (1862). Mrs. Browning. 

Nicolera (In The Disciples). Mrs. Hamilton King. 

[Additions 10 the Bibliography] 

Mein. Stor. Mil. I. = Memorie Stoviche Militari. Fasc. I. gennaio, 1909. 
Comando del Corpo di Stato Maggiore, 

(Official documents of trial ot Giorgini for giving the ammunition 
to Garibaldi at Talamone.) 



I 



Gulf of 
Caste 1 1 amare 



irea 




^alatafimi 

AY IS 

xnto del 



r' S.Ninfa 



Partaiina 



Gib'eUi 



j^ 



^ 

:% 



? 



r'orto 
Palo 



C.S.Mi 



3nc& Co., Londoi 




route of the Thousand 
roads in 1860 
tracks in 1860 
N.B. Many of the riuers marked contain little or no water in l/lay _ 



Green & Co., London. New York. Bombay, and Calcutta. 








MAY.26eve%<5;C 



S.. 



fcgiiia 



MAP IV (a) 



Environs of 
PA LERMO 




Lougmaos, Gi 



Co., London, New York, Bombay, and Calcutta. 




Malta fx 

(British) ^■^ 



Scale, i:4,5jOO,ooo 
Eng-lish Miles 



Note:- King Victor Emmanuel's dominio ns 

during May, 1860, are shaded thus:- I ' I 

The Quadrilateral Fortresses are underlined 



Emery Walker sc. 



New York, Bombay, and Calcutta. 



MAP V ITALY, at time of the sailing o fthe Thousand 




do], New Vork. Bombay, and Calcutta. 



INDEX 



Abba quoted, 194-5, 343, 344 

Aberdeen, Lord, 51-2 and note^ 

Acton, Capt., 236-7 

Agresta, 192 

Amari, 147, 148, 293 

Antonelli, Card., 76 

Ardoino, 85 

Arese, Count, 75 

Armaforte, Antonio, cited, 344, 347 

Arnold, Matthew, cited, 79 note ^ 

Austria : 

British attitude towards, 20, 21, 

79 ; Aberdeen's negotiations 

regarding Neapolitan prisoners, 

51-2 and note * 

Ferdinand II's attitude towards, 

43, 52, 125-6 
France, war with (1859), 87, 103 
Hungarian attitude towards, 103 

note ^ 
Naples not helped by (i860), 224 
Piedmont : 

Conspiracy with Naples and 
the Pope against, 138, 140, 
169, 186 
War with (1859), see under 
Piedmont 
Austrians, barbarities of, 19, 21 

Baldini, Teresa, 197 and note 2 

Bandi, — , wounded at Calatafimi, 
259-60, 262 ; quoted — on Gari- 
baldi's decision not to go to Sicily, 
190-1 and note ; on the morning 
before Calatafimi, 251 ; cited, 220 
note ; otherwise mentioned, 220, 
223 

Basso, 29, 34 ; cited, 18 note ' 

Bentivegna, 149 

Benza, 153 

Bergamo, volunteers from, for 
Sicilian expedition, 218 

Bersaglieri, efforts of, to join Sici- 
lian expedition frustrated, 221 



Bertani, Dr., deprecates Pisacane's 
expedition, 68 ; organises ambu- 
lance for Cacciatori delle A I pi, 85, 
86 ; justly appreciates the situa- 
tion (Jan. i860) — letter to Panizzi, 
166 and note 2 ; Garibaldi's letter 
to (Feb. 20), quoted, 168, 333; 
discourages royal troops' deser- 
tions, 172 ; organises Sicilian ex- 
pedition, 180, 193-4; instructed 
to aid Zambianchi's expedition, 
2x6 ; Garibaldi's letter to, on 
battle of Calatafimi, 261 note ; 
cited, 340-1; quoted, 334; state- 
ments of, as to Cavour's attitude, 
&c., 162 and note, 335-7 ; other- 
wise mentioiied, 60-1, 185 note^, 
187, 201-3 

Besana, Garibaldi's letter to (Feb. 
20), quoted, 333 

Bibliography, 348-76 

Biffi, Luigi, 262 

Bismarck, 27, 80 

Bixio, Nino, commissioned to enrol 
volunteers for Garibaldi, 83 ; 
joins the Cacciatori delle Alpi, 85 ; 
at San Fermo, 99 ; in the Val- 
telline, 107 ; in the Romagna, 
119; retires, 121; claims fulfil- 
ment of Garibaldi's promise re- 
garding Sicily, 1 70-1 ; opposes 
scheme for smashing ballet-boxes, 
176; on Garibaldi's decision not 
to go to Sicily, 190-1 ; per- 
suades Garibaldi to go and renews 
preparations, 192-4, 337-8 ; the 
embarkation, 200-2 ; arrange- 
ments for the ammunition, 207-8 
and note ; in command of the 
Lombardo, 209 ; first battalion 
under, 219 ; obtains coal at 
Porto S. Stefano, 221 ; attitude 
towards La Masa, 222 ; anxious 
encounter with Piewovte, 228 ; 



378 



GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 



disappointment with Sicilians, 
241 ; march to Salemi, 242-3 ; at 
Calatafimi, 257-9; advises retreat, 
25S and note - ; at Borgetto, 270 ; 
at Misilmeri, 283 ; enraged at La 
Masa's incapacity on the advance, 
297 ayid note ' ; at the Ponte delle 
Teste, 299 ; at the Porta Termini 
barricade, 300 ; wounded, 300, 
302 ; enraged at laxity of Sici- 
lians, 305 ; confined to bed, 306 ; 
apprehensive of further attack, 
323 ; reassured, 325 ; political 
capacity of, 187 ; military talent, 
1S7, 214 ; ferocity towards his 
men, 222 ; family relations, 85 
note''; cited, 162 aK^fwo/e, 261, 284, 
288 note -, 336 ; quoted, 268 note ^, 
324 ; otherwise mentioned, 16S, 
220 

Blind, Karl, 212 

Bomba, see Ferdinand II 

Bonanno, Gen., attacks Cozzo di 
Crasto and returns to Monreale, 
279 note 1 ; misinformed by Lanza 
(May 26), 293 ; recalled to Pa- 
lermo Palace, 308 ; mentioned, 
246-7 and note ' 

Bosco, Major, success of, near Mon- 
reale, 273 ; vainly urges Von 
Mechel to march on Palermo, 
281-2 ; returns to Palermo, 315 ; 
enraged at truce, 317-18 ; af- 
fected by Sicilian vehemence, 
321 ; estimate of, 134, 315 

Bovi, 220-1 

Boyce, Mrs., cited, 25 note 

Braico, 125, 218 

Brenier (French ambassador at 
Naples), 128, 130-2 

Brescia, contributions from, towards 
Sicilian expedition, 218, 341 

Briganti, Col. Fileno, 293-4 

Brofferio, 165, 166 

Bronzetti, Narcisco, 103 and note ^, 
105 

Brown, Consul, 200 note ^ 

Browning, Mrs., cited, 178 note 

Buol, Count, 130 

Buonopane, Col., 313, 321-2 

Buxton, Mrs, Gurney, cited, 88 
note ^ 



Cacciatori degli Apennini, 86 
Cacciatori delle A Ipi : 

Equipment of, 86, 88, 93 

Formation of (1859), 78 

Garibaldi' s appreciation of , 2 1 i-i 2 



Cacciatori delle Alpi — cont. 

Genoese carabineers with, 88 

Lombard invasion by, 91 ; Var- 
ese, 92-6 and notes, 331 ; San 
Fermo and Como, 97-101 and 
note ', 331-2 ; Laveno, 101-2 ; 
crossing to Lecco, 103 ; action 
at Seriate, 103 ; from Bergamo 
to Brescia, 104-5 ; Tre Ponti, 
105-6 ; ordered away to the 
Valtelline, 106 

Ofificers of, 85 ; help from, to- 
wards Sicilian expedition, 194 

Patois verse celebrating, 88 note * 

Personnel of, 88-9 

Strength of, 88 and note ^ 

Tiirr sent with, 213 ; his rashness 
at Ponte S. Giacomo, 105-6 

Value and estimate of work of, 
108-9 
Cairoli, Benedetto, company under, 

on Sicilian expedition, 219 ; at 

Calatafimi, 259 ; wounded at the 

Porta Termini barricade, 300 ; 

later career, 95; quoted, 119 
Cairoli, Enrico, at Calatafimi, 259 ; 

quoted, 253, 268 note ^ 
Cairoli, Ernesto, 95 
Calatafimi, Landi's arrival at, 244, 

247 
Calatafimi, battle of: 

Authorities cited for, 343 

Beginning of, 254 

Conduct of, 256 and note 2, 257- 
60 and note, 272 

Garibaldi's impressions of, 261 
note 

Losses in, 261 

Troops engaged in, 253, 255-6, 

342-3 

Caltanisetta, Neapolitan garrison at, 
158 note 1 

Campanaro, action at, 278 

Campo, Giuseppe, leads rising at 
Bagheria, 152 ; falsifies news 
from Sicily, 192 note * ; captures 
Montalto gate and bastion, 312 ; 
cited, 276 note ^, 347 

Canzio, Gen., wounded at the Porta 
Termini barricade, 300 ; cited, 
177 note^, 181 note^, 205 note, 
261, 340 ; quoted, 320 note ^, 330 

Caprera : 

Condition and natural features of, 

32-3, 329-30 
Garibaldi's purchase of northern 

half of, 31 
Inhabitants of, 33-4 

Carbonari, 40 



INDEX 



379 



Carbone, Francesco, 301 

Carduccl, 223 

Carini, — , second battalion of 
Sicilian expedition under, 219 ; 
restores order among La Masa's 
squadre, 297 ; wounded under 
truce, 317 

Carpanetto, 16 

Ca.stelcicala, Gov., Neapolitan repre- 
sentative in London, 52 note ^ ; 
governor of Sicily, 147 ; military 
mistakes of, 232 ; nervousness of, 
246, 248 ; orders Landi's retreat 
on Palermo, 248, 263 ; withdrawal 
of, decided, 265 ; quoted, 160 

Castelli quoted, 338 

Castiglia, — , captain of the Pie- 
monte, 230, 340 ; cited, 230 

Castromediano, Sigismondo, trial 
and imprisonment of, 56 ; re- 
lease of, 124 ; death of, 55 ; esti- 
mate and career of, 55-6 ; cited, 
50 note ^ ; Memorie of, cited, 55 
and note ^ 

Cataldo, Gen., 308-9 and note ^ 

Cava, Capt. Tommaso, quoted, 
304; cited, 315 notes'^-* 

Cavour, Count, Crimean war policy 
of, 28-9 ; alliance with Demo- 
cratic party (1856), 63-4, 66-7; 
the Orsini affair (1858), 71-4 ; 
secret agreement with Napoleon 
at Plombieres (1858), 76-8 ; sum- 
mons Garibaldi (Dec. 1858), 82 ; 
Carrara revolution scheme, 83 ; 
interviews with Garibaldi (Feb. 
and Mar. 1859), 83 ; contem- 
plates suicide on the disarmament 
proposal, 80 ; provokes war with 
Austria (Apr. 1859), 78, 80 ; 
policy embodied in creation of 
Garibaldi's volunteer force, 86, 
213 ; conspiracy with Kossuth, 
no ; invites Naples to alliance 
against Austria (May 1859), 129 ; 
enraged at Peace of Villafranca, 
1 1 2-1 3 ; organises nationalist 
opposition, 1 1 3-1 5 ; retirement 
in Switzerland, 115 ; returns to 
power (Jan. i860), 139, 164 ; ex- 
pels Crispi from Turin, 164 ; 
negotiations concerning annexa- 
tion of Tuscany and Emilia, 164 ; 
advises Sicilians to rise (Feb. 
i860), 153 ; Garibaldi's attitude 
towards (Feb. 15), 333-4 ; corre- 
spondence with Villamarina (Mar. 
i860), 141, 169 ; annexation of 
Tuscany and Emilia, 140-1 ; ces- 



sion of Savoy and Nice, 169-70, 
175 ; Garibaldi's quarrel with, 
165, 170, 178, 212 ; invites Ri- 
botti to invade Sicily, 170, 186 ; 
offers guns from National Society 
for a Sicilian expedition, 184 and 
note ^, 1 86 ; attitude towards 
Garibaldi's Sicilian expedition be- 
fore its start, 5-6, 162-3, 188-9, 
i95~7 '^^'^ "^0^^ ^ 198, 336-9 ; in 
Genoa (Apr. 22-3), 186-8; inter- 
view with Sirtori, 187 and notes -8 
and note "', 336-7, 339 ; interview 
with Victor Emmanuel at Bo- 
logna, 196-7 ; policy regarding in- 
vasion of Papal States, 216 ; sup- 
port given to Sicilian expedition 
after its start, 218, 226, 325 ; 
diplomatic difficulties over the 
expedition, 224-7 ; instructions 
regarding arrest of Garibaldi, 
225-6 ; correspondence with Rica- 
soli regarding the expedition, 226- 
7 ; reception of news of Gari- 
laaldi's landing at Marsala, 244 ; 
Instructions to Marquis d'Aste as 
to winning over Neapolitan navy, 
325 note ^ ; efforts on behalf of 
Fauche, 201 ; principles and 
achievements of, 27 ; policy of 
deceit, 27, 183 and note 2, 339 ; 
attitude towards Mazzini, 70 ; 
towards Garibaldi, 64-5, 70, 122, 
165-6 ; biographies of, 26 note ; 
otherwise mentioned, i, 4, 7, 21, 
173-4, 267, 315, 341 

Cesaresco, Countess Martinengo, 
cited, 114 note ^ 

Chretien, Gen., 318, 320 

Ciaccio, 312 

Cialdini, Gen., 86-7, 103 

Ciampoli cited, 17 note -^ et passim 

Clarendon, Earl of, 61 

Collins, Mr. and Mrs., 33-4 

Colonna, Gen., 277-9 

Como, 97 ; battle of, 98-101, 331-2 

Conca d'Oro, 271 and note - 

Corleo cited as unreliable, 249 note ' 

Corleone : 

Garibaldi's feigned retreat to, 

279, 281, 345 
Orsinl's rearguard action near, 282 
Squadre formed in, 245 

Corrao, — , sets sail with Pilo, 169 ; 
Garibaldi's dispatch to, 284, 287 
note - ; falls on Cataldo's troops, 

309 
Cosenz, — , discountenances Pisa- 
cane's expedition, 68 ; joins the 



38o 



GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 



Cacciatori dcUe Alpi, 85 ; at 
Vaxese, 95 ; at Olgiate, 98 ; at 
San Fermo, 99 ; at Tre Ponti, 
105 ; in the Romagna, 119 ; 
estimate of, 187 ; otherwise men- 
tioned, 214, 341 

Cossins, Consul, 242 

Cossovich, Capt., 311, 313 

Costatini cited, 345 ; estimate of, as 
an authority, 344 

Cowen, Joseph, 24-5 

Cowlej', Earl, quoted, 342 

Cozzo di Crasto, 276-7 

Craig, Herbert, 25 note 

Crimean war : 

British attitude towards, 24 
Piedmontese contingent in, 28-9, 
61 

Crispi, Signora, with the Sicilian 
expedition, 219 

Crispi, Francesco, Sicilian tour of, 
in disguise as Manuel Pareda, 
152 and note ^ ; interviews with 
Fabrizi, Fcirini, and Rattazzi, 
163-4 ; expelled from Turin by 
Cavour, 164 ; claims fulfilment of 
Garibaldi's promise, 170-1 ; in- 
terview with Farini (Apr. i860), 
1S3-4 ; on Garibaldi's decision 
not to go to Sicily, 190. 192 ; ob- 
tains good news from Sicily, 192, 
338 ; undeterred by Garibaldi's 
monarchical proclamation, 212 ; 
Garibaldi's political secretary in 
Sicily, 259, 269, 306 ; diary of, 
quoted, 335 ; otherwise men- 
tioned, 14S, 149, 189 

Croats, 104 note 

Cuneo, Garibaldi's letter to, quoted, 
29 

Cuniberti cited, 344, 346 



D' AsTE, Marquis, refuses Garibaldi's 
request for ammunition, 314-15, 
320 note ^ ; at conference on 
H.M.S. Hannibal, 319 ; Cavour's 
instructions to, 325 note * 

D'Azeglio, Marquis Massimo, offers 
Garibaldi a pension, 14 ; organ- 
ises nationalist movement in 
the Romagna, 114; sequestrates 
arms of IMiUion Rifles Fund, i S2-3 
and notes, 185, 198,334; Greville's 
account of, 21 ; mentioned, 26 

De Cesare, Signer, cited, 46 et passim 

De Cristoforis, 98 

De La Rive, William, quoted, 115, 
335. 338-9 



De Sivo cited, 53-4 
Deideris, 14, 30 
Delia Cerda, Signor, cited, 293 
Delia Margherita, Solaro, 113 
Delia Rocca, Gen., 72 
Delia Russa, Rocca, 299 
Denegri, Pietro, 16, 18 note ^ 
Di Benedetto, Pasquale, 312 
Di Benedetto, RaflEaele, 312 
Di Benedetto, Salvatore, 312 
Dolmage, Mr., cited, 152 
Dumas, 326 note ^ 



Eber (Times correspondent), vnsit 
of, to Ga.ribaldi's camp, 2S4 note ^, 
2S6 ; cited, 284 not-e ^, 287 notes, 
315 note ^, 346 ; queted, 301 

Elia, — , commanding Lomhardo 
under Bixio, 228 ; wounded at 
Calatafimi, 258, 262 ; cited, 229 
vote * 

Elliot, Henrj', mission of, to Naples, 
116 «o<e ^ 130 note'^; urges re- 
form on King Francis, 128, 130 ; 
value of dispatches of, 130, 131; 
views on King Francis, 128 ; 
quoted, 132 ; cited, 304 note ^ 

Emilia : 

Annexation of, to Piedmont, 
see under Piedmont — Central 
Italian States 
Constituted a province, 120 note ' 

Eugenie, Empress, 71, 76 



Fabrizi, Niccola, collects arms at 
Llalta, 149-50 ; has interviews 
with Crispi and Farini, 163-4 » 
announces Sicihan revolution, 
170 ; telegram from (Apr. 26, 
i860), 189-91 

Falconi quoted, 12 note^ 

Fanti, Gen., 11 9-21, 170 

Farini, — , organises nationalist 
movement in Modena, 114, 118 ; 
Governor of Emilia, 120 note^, 
163 ; forward policy of, 120 ; 
subsequent caution, 120-1 ; inter- 
views with Crispi and Finzi, 
1S3-4 ; message of, assuring Ber- 
tani of Government's approval 
^lay i860), 197 note*; cited, 
226 note ' 

Fauche, — , negotiations with, 171, 
180, 193 ; grants Piemonte and 
Lonibardo to Sicihan expedition, 
189, 202, 340 ; dismisscil and ruin 
of, by Rubattino, 201 



I 



INDEX 



381 



Ferdinand I, King of Naples, 40, 133 
Ferdinand II, King of Naples {Bom- 
ba), constitution of 1848 granted 
by, 44-5 ; attitude of, towards 
Austria, 43, 52, 125-6 ; barbar- 
ous tyranny of, 45—7 ; attempted 
assassination of (1856), 67, 124; 
Elliot's mission to (1S59), 116 
note ^ ; batch of prisoners liber- 
ated by, 124 ; army policy of, 
I33> 135 ; l^st illness, 127 ; last 
instructions to his son, 128 ; 
death of, 128 ; estimate of, 42-3 ; 
nickname of, 46 note 2 
Ferraciolo, 33 

Filangieri, Gen., career of, 131 and 
note : reconquest of Sicily (1848), 
131,146-7; Ferdinand's estimate 
of, 128 ; advice to King Francis, 
129; disregarded, 131; diminish- 
ing influence of, 138 ; refuses to go 
to Sicily (i860), 265 ; mistaken 
mihtary advice of, regarding 
Sicilian situation, 266 ; quoted, 
46: otherwise mentioned, 43, 134 
Finall, 197 note ^ 

Finzi, — , opposes scheme for 
smashing ballot-boxes, 176 ; re- 
fused arms for Sicilian expedi- 
tion, 182-3 ^^^ '^'^^^ ^ '> interview 
with Farini, 183-4 » supplies 
money for Sicilian expedition, 
202-3 '> Garibaldi's letter to (Feb. 
15), quoted, 333 ; letters of, cited, 
336 
Fisher, H. A. L., cited, 75 note - 
France : 

Austria, war with (1859), 87, 103 
British attitude towards, 79 and 

note '^-81, 115, 224 
Italian question, attitude to- 
wards : 
Garibaldi, dislike of, 29 
Gladstone's Neapolitan Letters 

as affecting (1851), 54 
Minister withdrawn from 
Naples (1856), 54, 61 ; diplo- 
matic relations resumed 
(1859), 128 
Rome, French garrison in, see 
Rome 
Nice and Savoy ceded to, see 

Piedmont — Cession 
Prussian menace to (1859), no 
Villafranca, Pea,ce of, see that title 
Francis II, King of Naples, marriage 
of, 126 ; dying instructions from 
his father, 128 ; incident at re- 
ceiving homage, 128 ; refuses 



alliances with Piedmont (May 
1859), 129; helpless vacillation 
of, 129 ; influences affecting, 
1 30-1 ; rejects Filangieri' s advice, 
131 ; again refuses alhance with 
Piedmont (i860), 139, 140 ; con- 
spiracy with Austria and the Pope 
against Piedmont, 138, 140, 169, 
1 85 ; Victor Emmanuel's letter 
to (Apr. i860), quoted, 185-6 ; 
efforts of, against Garibaldi's 
Sicilian expedition, 246 ; action 
regarding the Sicilian situation, 
265-7 ; ' humble petition ' to, 
refused by Garibaldi, 319-21 ; 
frightened at accounts from 
Palermo, 322 ; capitulates, 323 ; 
estimate of, 42, 126 

FrappoUi, 189 

' Friends of Italy, ' Society of (1851), 

23 
Fruscianti cited, 330 



Garaviglia cited, 341 

Garibaldi, Signora (mother of Giu- 
seppe), last meeting of, with her 
son, 12 ; death of, and dream of 
Garibaldi, 17-18 and note \ 19 

Garibaldi, Anita, death of (1849), 9 , 
burial-place of, 120 ; Garibaldi's 
memoirs of, 14 ; otherwise men- 
tioned, 206, 218 

Garibaldi, Felice, 30 

Garibaldi, Gen. Giuseppe : 
Appearance of, 83-4 
British sentiments towards, 22, 

24 
Career, chronological sequence of 
Retreat from Rome (1849), 9 
arrest at Chiavari (1849), lo-ii 
visit to his family at Nice, 12 
wanderings, 12-13 ; residence 
at Tangier, 13-14 ; relations 
with Piedmontese monarchy, 
14; goestoNe\vYork,i4; severe 
rheumatism, 14, 15 ; work in 
candle factory, 14-15 ; tour to 
Central America, 16 ; illness 
(marsh fever), 16 ; year's voy- 
age in the Carmen, 16-1S and 
note '^ ; sails for Newcastle as 
captain of the Commonwealth, 
18; meets Mazzini (Feb. 1854), 
19, 21-2 ; presented with sword 
of honour by Tyneside working 
men, 25 ; returns to Italy and 
settles at Nice (1854), 26; 
favours suppression of the 



382 



GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 



monasteries and participation 
in Crimean war, 28 ; life at 
Nice, 29-30 ; purchases half 
island of Caprera, 31 ; life and 
occupations there, 34-7 ; Pa- 
nizzi liberation scheme (1855), 
60-1 ; alliance with Cavour, 
64-5 ; vice-president of Italian 
National Society (1857), 65 ; 
discountenances Pisacane's ex- 
pedition, 68 ; summoned by 
Cavour (Dec. 1858), 82 ; com- 
missions Bixio to enrol volun- 
teers, 83 ; spends Christmas at 
Caprera, 83 ; interview with 
Cavour (Mar. 1859), 83-4 ; first 
meeting with Victor Emmanuel, 
84 ; organises Cacciatori delle 
Alpi, 85; invades Lombardy, 
91; enters Varese, 92 ; fortifies 
its approaches, 93-4 ; battle of 
Varese, 94-6, 331 ; San Fermo 
and Como, 98-101 and note 1, 
331 ; Laveno, 101-2 ; crosses 
to Lecco, 103; Ponte S. Pietro, 
103 ; Seriate, 103 ; courtesy 
to Austrian prisoners, 104 ; 
from Bergamo to Brescia, 104- 

5 ; under Victor Emmanuel's 
orders, 105 ; Tre Ponti, 106 ; 
sent to Salo, 106 ; ordered 
away to the Valtelllne, 106 and 
note ' ; second in command 
under Fanti, 119 ; at Ravenna 
— on the banks of the ' Rubi- 
con,' 120 ; indecision and rash- 
ness, 1 20-1 ; retires to Genoa, 
121 ; relations with Piedmontese 
cabinet, 122 ; invited to help 
Sicilians, 151, 163 ; at Turin 
(Dec. 1859)— refused organisa- 
tion of National Guard in Lom- 
bardy, 164 ; indignation at ces- 
sion of Nice, 169-70, 172, 175- 

6 ; letters promising condi- 
tionally to go to Sicily (Jan. 
and Mar. i860), 167-9, 333 ; 
second marriage, 167 ; returns 
to Caprera, 167 ; advised by 
Hudson, 173, 174 ; interpella- 
tion in the Chamber regarding 
cession of Nice, 175 ; scheme 
for smashing ballot-boxes, 175- 
7 ; life at the Villa Spinola, 
1 80-1 and note - ; decided by 
Fabrizi's telegram not to go 
to Sicily, 189-92 ; decided by 
' new facts ' to go, i93> 337-8 ; 
the start and embarkation, 200 



note ^, 205-7 ; the voyage, 
206-10, 223, 227 ; leaving of the 
ammunition, 208-9 ; scheme 
for invasion of Papal States, 
209, 216-18 ; arrival at Tala- 
mone, 210 ; proclamation to 
his followers, 211-12 ; defec- 
tion of republicans, 212; organ- 
ising his followers, 219 ; discip- 
lining them, 220 ; refuses to 
take Bersaglieri deserters from 
Orbetello, 221; writes song of 
tyranny and revolt, 223 ; anx- 
ious encounter with Lombardo, 
228 ; makes for Marsala, 230 ; 
the landing, 234, 238 ; accepts 
dictatorship of Sicily, 239 and 
note 2 ; demeanour towards 
Sicilians, 240-1 ; march to 
Salemi, 242-3 ; the halt, 249 ; 
assumes dictatorship at Salemi, 
249 ; decrees conscription for 
all Sicily, 249 ; intimacy with 
Father Pantaleo, 250 ; before 
Calatafimi, 250-4 ; the battle, 
257-60 ; after the battle, 262, 
264 ; authority as Dictator 
widely acknowledged, 264 ; 
religious ceremony at Alcamo, 
269 ; appoints civil governors 
and abolishes the macino, 269- 
70 ; plan for Pilo's occupation 
of S. Martino, 273 ; leaves 
Renda, 274 ; moves to Parco, 
274-6 ; plan for defence of the 
Cozzo di Crasto, 277 ; retreat 
on Plana del Greci, 277-8 ; 
feigns retreat on Corleone and 
returns secretly to Misilmeri, 
279-81, 345 ; holds council of 
war, 283-4 ; visit from British 
naval officers, 285 ; visit from 
United States naval of&cers, 
286 ; receives information 
from Eber, 286-7 ^^<^ *^<'^^ ^ '> 
convokes Sicilian leaders, 287 ; 
allows squadre a front place in 
the attack, 287-8 ; the night 
advance to Palermo, 297 ; at 
the Ponte dell' Ammiraglio, 
298 ; rounding up panic- 
stricken squadre, 299 ; at the 
Porta Termini barricade, 300 ; 
at the Fiera Vecchia, 301-2 
and note 1 ; organises occupa- 
tion of the city, 302, 306 • 
advances towards the Quattro 
Cantoni, 304 ; occupies Piazza 
Bologni, 305 ; accident from a 



INDEX 



383 



Garibaldi — cont; 

pistol, 305 and note ^ ; calms 
Bixio, 306 ; head quarters at 
Piazza Pretorio, 306-7; willing 
to permit Neapolitan com- 
munications with British 
admiral, 311 ; at the cathe- 
dral, 312 ; receives Lanza's 
letter asking armistice, 314 ; 
efforts to obtain ammunition, 
314, 320 and note'^; shot 
at under truce, 318 ; indig- 
nant at Von Mechel's breach 
of truce, 318 ; conference on 
board H.M.S. Hannibal, 319- 
20 ; obtains ammunition from 
Greek vessel, 321 ; consents to 
prolong armistice, 322 ; main- 
tains public order, 324 ; arrival 
of second expedition under 
Medici, 325 ; in the Royal 
Palace, 326 ; presentation of 
the Castellamare prisoners, 327 ; 
return to Caprera (Nov. 1S60), 
I ; greets Gladstone as Precur- 
seur (1864), 54; presented with 
southern half of Caprera (1864), 

34 
Cavour, relations with, 64-5, 122, 

165, 170, 178, 212, 333-4 ; ad- 
mired by Cavour, 70 
Characteristics of : 

Calmness — in battle, 89 ; in re- 
treat, 278 

Discipline, power of exacting, 
221, 242 

Eloquence, 15 

Loyalty, 64, 172 

Modesty, 15 

Mysticism, 269 

Obedience and readiness as a 
subordinate, 87 

Organising faculty, lack of, 87 

Patience, 9 

Patriotism, 9-10 

Secretiveness, 345-6 

Self-restraint, 9-1 1 

Tenderness to animals, 35-6 
Contributions of, in money to 

Sicilian expedition, 341 
Dress of, 12 note 2 ; since starting 

of Sicilian expedition, 205, 249 
Enthusiasm for, 107 
Estimate of, 36 
Gordon, compared with, 122 and 

note 1 
House of, at Caprera, 34, 330 
Hymn of, 82 
Influence of, with Democratic 



Garibaldi — cont. 

party, 21, 123 ; influence on 

public order in Palermo, 324 
Legendary exploits of, 7 
Mazzini's attitude towards, 21-2, 

64 note * ; his attitude towards 

Mazzini, 64-5, 212 
Memoir of South American life by, 

14 
Military reputation of, founda- 
tion of, 6 
Novel of — I Mille — cited, 210 

note 2 
Personation of, in Sicily, rumour 

as to, 275 
Poem of, on Caprera, quoted, 

329-30 
Portrait of, at North Shields, 25 

note 
Superstitions current about, in 

Sicily, 307 and note * 
Victor Emmanuel, attitude to- 
wards, 65, 84, 121, 165, 178 
otherwise mentioned, 179, 247, 
323 
Garibaldi, Menotti, accompanies 
his father at sea, 30 ; work at 
Caprera, 34 ; on the Sicilian ex- 
pedition, 218 ; wounded at Cal- 
atafimi, 257, 261 ; at the Piano 
della Stoppa, 285 ; at Neapoli- 
tan evacuation of Palermo, 324 ; 
otherwise mentioned, 12, 305 
'note ^ 
Garibaldi, Ricciotti, 12, 30 
Garibaldi, Teresita, 30, 35 
Gavazzi, Father, 24-5 
Genoa : 

Albergo della Felicitd, 177 and 

note ^ 
Arsenal plot (1857), 69-70 
Sicilian expeditions starting from, 

179-80 
Volunteers from, for Garibaldi's 
Sicilian expedition, 218 
Genoese Carabineers : 

Calatafimi, at, 254-5, 259 
Commander of, 212 
Marsala, at, 239 

Plana del Greci, on retreat to, 278 
Ponte deir Ammiraglio, at the, 298 
otherwise mentioned, 219, 222 
Gibilrossa : 

Garibaldi on the Pass of, 289 
La Masa's camp at, 275 
Giorginl, Lieut.-Col., 214-15 
Gladstone, W. E., in Naples during 
political trials, 48-51 ; suDse- 
quent action, 51-3 and notes; 



384 



GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 



pecuniary support of liberation 
scheme, 60 ; cited, 47 ; other- 
wise mentioned, 117, 125 
Goodwin, Consul, 290-1 
Gordon, Gen. C. G., 122 
Great Britain : 

Austria, attitude towards, 20, 21, 
79 ; Aberdeen's negotiations 
with, regarding Neapolitan pri- 
soners, 51-2 and note '•'• 
France, attitude towards, 79 and 

note 3-8i, 115, 224 
Italy, sentiments towards, 22-4, 
53, 196 ; Minister withdrawn 
from Naples (1856), 54, 61 ; 
diplomatic relations resumed 
(1859), 128; Italian cause 
fashionable (spring 1859), 125 
Liberal Ministry in (1859), 115-18 
Orsini affair (1858), 72 
Papal hatred of (1851), 53 
Sicilian expedition, attitude to- 
wards, 224 ; effect of British 
warships' proximity, 233, 
236-8 
Villafranca, Peace of, attitude 
towards, 115, 11 7-1 8 
Greville's Diary quoted, 20-1 
Guerzoni cited, 12 note ^ 
Gusmaroli, 241 

Gyulai, Gen., inactivity of, 87 ; 
sends Urban against Garibaldi, 
94; alarmed, 97; evacuates Lom- 
bardy, 103 ; bad generalship of, 
III 



Hall, A. D., 329 

Haynau, Gen., 24 

Herzen, Alexander, cited, 22 

Hohenlohe quoted, loi, 109 note 

Holland, Lord and Lady, 60 

Holy Alliance, Neapolitan Liberals 

crushed by, 40 
Hudson, Sir James, trusted by 
Italian patriots, 60, 171 ; rela- 
tions with Lord John Russell, 
1 1 7-1 8; urges Garibaldi to 
choose Sicily rather than Nice, 
173, 174 ; letter of, to Lady John 
Russell quoted, 173 and note ; 
value of despatches of, 130 
Hungarians : 

Attitude of, towards Austria, 103 

note '^ 
Conspiracy of Napoleon, Kos- 
suth, and Cavour regarding, no 
Hunter Islands, 18 



/ Mille cited, 210 note ^ ; 212 

note ' 
Irish, pro-Papal attitude of, 23 
Ischitella, 265 
Italy : 

British sentiments towards, 22-4, 

53, 117, 125, 196 
Federation of States under Papal 

presidency, proposed, 112 
' Friends of Italy ' Society, 23 
Independence of : 

Achievement of, circumstances 

of, considered, 2-5 
British attitude towards, 22-4 
Italian National Society : 
Founding and officers of, 65 
Garibaldi resigns presidency of, 

165 
Guns from, for Sicilian expedi- 
tion, 184-5 and note 2, 197-8, 
221 
Troops smuggled by, into 
Piedmont, 78 
Nazione Armata, 165 
Republic y. Monarchy, Garibaldi's 

views as to, 64 
Riso-ygimento : 

Democratic party in, Cavour' s 

pact with (1856), 63-7 
Mantua conspiracy (1852-3), 

19-20 
Milan revolt (1852-3), 19-20 
Parma revolt (1859), in 
Pisacane's expedition, 67-70 
Poetic atmosphere of, 108 
Sicilian revolution (i860), 
see Sicilian expedition, and 
%mder Sicily — Revolution of 
i860 
Strength of (1859-60), 4 
mentioned, 154 note "^ 
Unification of : 

British attitude towards, 117 
French attitude towards, 66, 

77 
Piedmontese attitude towards 

(1857), 66 
Sicilian attitude towards, 



Jaucourt, 116 

Jerome Napoleon, Prince (Plon- 

Plon) , 75 and note ^, 80 
Jervolino, 47 
Joachim Murat, King of Naples, 

39 
Joseph Bonaparte, King of Naples, 

39 



INDEX 



385 



King, Bolton, cited, 342 

Kossuth, conspiracy of, with 

Napoleon and Cavour, no; 

meeting with Cavour after Peace 

of Villafranca, 113; otherwise 

mentioned, 10, 15, 213 



La Bolina, Jack, cited, 338 et al. 

La Farina, — , secretary of Italian 
National Society, 65 ; Cavour' s 
communications with, 66-7, 83 ; 
advises Sicilians to rise, 153 ; 
attitude towards Crispi's pro- 
posals, 164 ; offers and supplies 
guns from National Society for 
Sicilian expedition, 184, 198, 221 ; 
value of testimony of, 162 and 
note; otherwise mentioned, 148, 
152, 188 

La Gorce cited, 75 note 2 et 
passim 

La Marmora, Gen., In the Crimea, 
29 ; Cavour' s letter to, on Plom- 
bieres arrangement, 76 ; dis- 
plays official jealousy of Gari- 
baldi, 86 

La Masa, — , on Garibaldi's refusal 
to go to Sicily, 190-1 ; eulogises 
Bixio, 222 ; at Saleml, 243 ; 
detached by Garibaldi to rouse 
the Sicilians, 275 ; forms camp 
of 3000 squadre at Gibilrossa, 
275 ; instructed by Garibaldi to 
descend for flank attack, 277 ; 
summoned by Garibaldi, 281 ; 
at council of war, 283-4 '> ^^' 
signed front ■pla.cewiihhis squadre, 
287-8 ; incapacity to control 
his squadre, 297 ; attacked under 
truce by Von Mechel, 316 ; 
estimate of, 184, 275 ; cited, 
284 note \ 337-8 et passim ; 
otherwise mentioned, 188, 249, 
278 

Lacaita, Sir James, 48 

Landi, Gen., march of, from 
Palermo towards Marsala, 232, 
244, 247 ; nervousness and panic 
of, 248, 255, 262-3 ; ordered to 
return to Palermo, 263, 343 ; 
sends supports to Sforza, 255, 
342 ; retreats through Alcamo, 
Partinico, and Montelepre to 
Palermo, 263-4, 270 ; flies before 
Garibaldi in Palermo, 305 ; cited 
and quoted, 342-3 

Lanza, Gen, Ferdinando, sent to 



Sicily as the King's alter ego, 
265-6 ; vacillations of, 266-7 '• 
dispatch to, from Von Mechel, 
281 ; neglects defence of Pa- 
lermo on south-east, 287 ; inter- 
view with Admiral Mundy, 
289-91 ; determination to bom- 
bard the city, 290, 294 ; believes 
Garibaldi routed (May 25-6), 
290, 293, 294, and note^; becomes 
inactive, 304 ; concentrates 
forces at the Palace, 308 ; 
communications with Admiral 
Mundy, 311 ; scornful attitude 
towards Garibaldi, 311, 313 ; 
letter to Garibaldi requesting 
armistice, 314 ; instructs Von 
Mechel to observe the armistice, 
315, 318 ; refuses to break faiih 
on Von Mechel' s arrival, 318; 
resolves on general attack after 
armistice, 321 ; dissuaded by 
Buonopane's alarmist reports, 
322 ; evacuates Palermo, 324 

Laveno, 101-2 

Leggiero (Capt. Giovanni Battista 
Culiolo) , accompanies Garibaldi 
on retreat from Rome to Pied- 
mont (1849), 9 ; at Tangier, 13 

Leipnecher, 47 

Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, 
III, 114 note 1 

Letizia, Gen., punitive expedition 
under, at Marsala, 232, 235 ; 
transported from Marsala to 
Palermo, 232 ; conference on 
board H.M.S. Hannibal, 318-20; 
mission to Court at Naples, 
322 

Liberal, signification of term, as 
used of Italian parties, 28 note ^ 

Lombardo : 

Bixio in command of, 209 
Dimensions, tonnage, &c., of, 209 

note ^ 
Elia in command of, under Bixio, 

229 note ^ 
Flooding of, at Marsala, 239 
Grounding of, outside Marsala, 

234 
Seizure of, for Sicilian expedition, 
200-2 
Lombardy ; 

Austrian rule in, 41 
Garibaldi's invasion of (1859), 91 
Louis Napoleon, see Napoleon III 
Luzio, Signer Cav. A., cited, 5-6, 20 
note,^ 336, 341 

c c 



386 



GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 



Maddalena : 

Garibaldi's stay at (1849), 12 and 

note 2 
Naval uses of, 31 and note 2 

Magenta, battle of, 103, 129 

Malmesbury, Lord, on Austrian- 
Piedmontese war (1859), 79 

Malta, Sicilian revolutionaries' ar- 
moury in, 149-50 

MameH's hymn, 252 note ^ 

Manin, — , defence of Venetian Re- 
public by, 9 ; originates alliance 
with Cavour, 63 ; joins ItaUan 
National Society (i_857), 65 

Manin, Giorgio, at Marsala, 238 ; 
wounded at Calatafimi, 262 

Maniscalco (Director of Police in 
Sicily), policy of, 147 ; spies of, 
147, 324 ; violence after Solferino 
celebrations, 151 ; stabbed, 153 ; 
warned of Gancia rising, 156 ; 
tricks Francesco Riso, 161, 332 ; 
provokes Consul Goodwin, 290 ; 
urges Lanza to take active 
measures, 294 ; mentioned, 293 
note '^ 

Mantua, conspiracy of (1852-3), 
19-20 

Manzoni, Pecorini, cited, 346 

■^archetti, Signer, cited, 103 
note '^ 

Margherita, 50 and note ^ 

Maria Christina of Savoy (first 
wife of Ferdinand II of Naples), 
42 

Maria Sophia of Bavaria, Queen 
of Naples, marriage of, 126 ; 
liberal influence of, 130 

Maria Theresa of Austria (second 
wife of Ferdinand II of Naples), 
family life of, 42 ; attitude 
towards her stepson, 126, 127, 
130 ; reactionary influence of, 
130-1 

Mario, Jessie White, views of, on 
Pisacane's expedition, 68 ; cited, 
29 note \ 30 

Marro, Gen. Bartolo, 294 

Marryat, Capt., 233 ; interviews 
Acton, 237 ; quoted, 236, 237 

Marsala : 

Decurionato of, offers Garibaldi 

dictatorship, 239 
Description of, 231-2 
Garibaldi's landing at, 234-8 and 
notes: Cavour' s reception of 
the news, 244 

Martinengo, Countess Cesaresco, 
cited, 55 note ' 



Mazzini, Giuseppe, risings promoted 
by, 16, 19-20 and note \ 67-9; 
Sicilian conspiracies of (1850-8), 
149-50 ; death of his raother, 19 ; 
allegiance of his followers trans- 
ferred to Cavour and Garibaldi, 
20, 21, 28, 68 ; meeting with Gari- 
baldi (1854), 19, 21 ; ' neutral 
banner ' policy of, repudiated by 
Garibaldi (1856), 64 ; Pisacane's 
expedition (1857), 67-70 ; Or- 
sini's quarrel with, 72 ; denounces 
war of 1859, 84; at Florence 
urges a forward policy on Gari- 
baldi, 120 ; letter to the Sicilians 
(March, i860), 153 ; instigates 
Sicilian expedition, 163, 168; 
travels to Genoa to join the ex- 
pedition, 212-13 '^^'^ '^f^^ ^ ; 
scheme of, for invasion of Papal 
States, 216 ; estimate of, 19 ; 
British popular sentiments to- 
wards, 24 ; Garibaldi's attitude 
towards, 64-5, 212 ; his attitude 
towards Garibaldi, 21-2, 64 note^ ; 
Cavour' s hatred of, 70 ; birth- 
place of, 179 ; quoted, 21-2, 121, 
123, 138, 212; otherwise men- 
tioned, 4, 10, 60, 113, 162 

Mercantini, ' Garibaldi's Hymn ' 
by, 82 

Medici, Giacomo, in the Panizzi 
liberation scheme, 60 ; joins the 
Cacciatori delle Alpi, 85 ; at 
Varese, 94 ; at San Fermo, 99 ; 
at Tre Ponti, 105 ; at Bormio, 
107 ; in the Romagna, 119 ; 
retires, 121 ; advocates Sicilian 
expedition, 166, 168 ; opposes 
scheme for smashing ballet-boxes, 
176 ; pessimistic about Sicilian 
expedition, 193, 198, 204 ; left 
to organise reinforcements, 204, 
216 ; arrives at Castellamare with 
second expedition, 325 ; estimate 
of, 187, 214 ; cited 162 ; quoted, 
165 ; mentioned, 171, 341 

Merimee, Prosper, quoted, 112 

Metternich, 40 

Meucci, 15 

Migliavacca, 203, 340-1 

Mignona, 168, 333-4 

Milan : 

Revolt of (1852-3), 19-20 
Volunteers from, for Sicilian ex- 
pedition, 218 

Milano, Agesilao, 67 

Million Rifles Fund : 
Establishment of, 165 



INDEX 



Z^7 



Million Rifles Fund — cont. 
Sicilian expedition : 

Finzi's promise of two hundred 
Enfields for, 176 ; frustrated 
by D'Azeglio, 182-3 ^^^ 
notes, 185, 198, 334 
Garibaldi's suggestion of Funds 
support for, 167, 168, 171, 

333-4 
Money supplied for, 202-3 «>i^ 
note, 340-1 

Misero-cannone, 271 and note ^ 

Misilmeri, Garibaldi's arrival at 
(May 26, i860), 281, 283 

Mistretta, Don Alberto, 243, 269 

Modena : 
Emilia, incorporated in, 120 

note^ 
Peace of Villafranca opposed by, 

113-14 
Piedmontese protectorate over 

(1859), III 
Union, military, of Tuscany and 
the Romagna with, 119 

Molesworth, 49 note 2 

Montanari, 262 

Morning Post, pro-Italian attitude 
of, 24 

Morley, John, cited, 64 note ^ 

Mosto, Antonio, 212 

Mundy, Adm., interview of, with 
Gen. Lanza, 289-91 ; informed of 
Garibaldi's intended attack on 
Palermo, 292 ; refuses Lanza use 
of British flag, 311 ; grants his 
cabin for conference between 
Garibaldi and Neapolitans, 319 ; 
disgusted with Neapolitans, 324 ; 
quoted, 290-1, 304 note ' ; cited, 
313 note 2, 316 note 2 

Murat, Joachim, King of Naples, 
39 

Murat, Lucien, Napoleon's Neapoli- 
tan schemes regarding, 54, 66, 77 



Naples, Kingdom of : 
Army of : 

' Bavarian ' regiments of, 138 
Discipline of, 133-4 
Equipment of, 133 
Excesses of, in Sicily, 157, 

303-4 and note ', 323-4 
Intrigue and disunion in, 136 
Liberals hated by, 44 . 
Officers of, 134-6 
Revolutionary propaganda in, 

137 
Royalist sympathies of, 141 



Naples, Kingdom of : Army of — con: . 

Strength of (i860), 133 

Swiss regiments of, disbandeJ, 
137, 152 
British and French Ministers 

wichdrawn from (1856), 54, 61 ; 

diplomatic relations resumed 

(1859), 128 
Camorra in (1851), 56 ; (1859), 132 
Condition of — in Middle Ages, 38; 

(1821-60), 40-2 
Constitution of 1820, acquisition 

and destruction of, 40 
Constitution of 1848, acquisi- 
tion and loss of, 44 ; never re- 
pealed, 53 note 1 
Francis II's accession as King, 128 
Murattist schemes of Napoleon 

III regarding, 54, 66, 77 
Piedmont : 

Alliance with, proposed, see 
under Piedmont 

Conspiracy with the Pope and 
Austria against, 138, 140, 
169, 186 
Police terrorism In, 45-6, 152 
Population of, characteristics of, 

39 
Prisoners and attendihili in 

(185 1), estimated number of, 

45-6 
Prisons in : 

Montefusco, 54, 56-8 

Nisida, 50-1 

Procida, 56 

San Stefano, 58-60 

Vicaria (Naples), 49-50 

Vicaria (Palermo), 161, 293 
309 
Sicily : 

Expedition of Garibaldi, see 
Sicilian expedition 

Relations with, 144-5, 148 
Napoleon I, Emp., 134, 181 
Napoleon III, Emp., protectorate of 
the Popes assumed by, 9, 66, 76 ; 
attitude towards Great Britain, 
24 ; Murattist designs of, in 
Naples, 54, 66, 77 ; complains of 
political liberty in Piedmont, 71 ; 
the Orsini affair, 71-5 ; clerical 
influences on, 76 ; secret agree- 
ment with Cavour at Plombieres 
(1858), 76 ; interview with Aus- 
trian ambassador (1859), i, 79, 
83 ; throws over Cavour, 80 ; 
Mazzini's distrust of, 84 ; victory 
of Magenta, 103 ; Peace of Villa- 
franca, 108, iio-ii ; Victor 
c c 2 



388 



GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 



Emmanuel's sentiments towards, 
1 12-13 and note ' ; relations with 
the Pope (Autumn, 1859), 118; 
Brenier's dispatches to, 131 ; 
alienation from the Pope, 140; 
Nice and Savoj^ ceded to, 77, 140, 
169 ; negotiations concerning 
annexation of Tuscany and 
Emilia, 164 ; Hudson's letter on, 
quoted, 173 ; attitude towards 
Sicilian expedition, 225 ; estimate 

of, 74-5 

Nice: 

Cession of, by Piedmont, see 

Piedmont — Cession 
Old town of, II 

Nicotera, — , in Pisacane's expedi- 
tion, 68-9 ; in prison at Favig- 
nana, 229-30 

Nievo, 204 

NuUo of Bergamo, 194, 300 

Nunziante, Gen., quells mutiny of 
Swiss regiments, 137 ; refuses to 
go to Sicily, 265 ; sent to Palermo, 
267 ; mentioned, 135, 266 

Nuvolari, 203 



Oliphant, Laurence, 174-7; cited, 

334-5 
Ollivier cited, 75 note 2 
Onnis, 212 

Orbetello fortress, 213-15 
Orlando, 338 
Orsini, Felice, attack on Napoleon 

by, 71-2, 74-5 
Orsini, Giordano, on the Piemonte, 

222-3; sent with artillery towards 

Corleone, 279 ; action against 

Von Mechel, 282 



Pagani, 195 
Palermo : 

Calatafiml fugitives' return to, 

264 
Castellamare fortress in, Rlso's 
imprisonment in, 160 ; his 
release, 326 [see also under 
Palermo — Garibaldi's attack) 
Garibaldi's attack and capture of: 
Ammunition — shortage of, 314, 
320 and notes 2, s j waste of, 
by squadre, 298, 303, 310; 
manufacture of, 321 
Barricades, 306, 310 and note 2 
Bombardment by Neapolitans 
— determined on, 290, 294, 
303 ; effected, 300-1, 303-4 



Palermo : Garibaldi's attack and 
capture of — cont. 
and note "^j ^06-8 ; suspended, 

311, 313 
Buonopane's troops' arrival 

(May 29), 313 
Capitulation of Neapolitans, 

322-3 
Castellamare fortress : 

Furniture removed from, 
in anticipation, 294 

Garibaldi fired at from, 
under truce, 318 

Isolated position of, 308 

Rise's release from, 326 

Semaphore messages from, 

311 
Surrender of, 323 
mentioned, 325 note ■* 

Cathedral — Neapolitan defence 
at, 308 ; Garibaldi's capture 
of, 311 ; severe fighting at, 
312 

Councils of war preceding, 283- 
4, 287 and note ^ 

Fiera Vecchia (Piazza della 
Rivoluzione) : 
Garibaldi's halt at, 301-2 
Von Mechel' s occupation of, 

317 
Information received by Gari- 
baldi before the attack, 

286-7 '^'"'d note 1 
Knowledge of, general in the 

city beforehand, 292-3 
Losses — of Neapolitans, 314 

and note, 325 ; of victors, 325 
Macqueda, 304 ; insurgents' 

capture of, 307 note ^ 
Mint handed over to Garibaldi, 

322 
Montalto gate and bastion 

captured, 312-13 and 

note ^ 
Neapolitan excesses, losses, 

&c., see Palermo — Garrison 
Piazza Bologni, Garibaldi's 

occupation of, 305 
Ponte deir Ammiraglio de- 
fences carried, 297 and note * 

-9 
Porta Felice captured by 

squadre, 307 
Porta Macqueda captured by 

insurgents, 308 
Porta Termini barricade, 299 ; 

fighting at, 300 
Quattro Cantonl, 304 ; cloth 

stretched across, 307 



INDEX 



389 



Palermo : Garibaldi's attack and 
capture of — cont. 
Quattro Venti, Neapolitans 

isolated in the, 308 
Route of advance (May 26), 

295-7 

Safety of life and property 
under Garibaldi, 324 

Squadre engaged in — assigned 
a front place, 287-8 ; dis- 
order on the advance, 296-7 ; 
panic at the Ponte dell' 
Ammiraglio, 298-9 ; at the 
Porta Termini barricade, 
300-1 ; waste of ammuni- 
tion by, 298, 303, 310 ; 
Porta Felice captured by, 

307 
Toledo, 304 ; severe fighting in, 
307-8, 312 ; safe passage 
down, granted by Garibaldi, 

3" 

Vanguard of attacking force, 

288 and note \ 298 
Vicaria gaol, political prisoners 

in, 293 ; escape of (May 28), 

309 
Garrison of : 

Capitulation of, 322-3 
Evacuation of the city by 

(June 7, i860), 324 
EKcesses of, 303-4 and note ^, 

323-4 
Location of, 286-7 
Losses of, 314 and note, 325 
Strength of (May i860), 228, 

246, 247, 272 note, 288 
Uneasiness of, before Gari- 
baldi's attack, 293 and 
note ^-4 
Illumination of (May 30), 321 
Riso's revolt, see under Sicily 
Secret press in, 154, 160 
Terrasanta, 155 
Tyranny of authorities in, 

291 
Vicaria gaol-fortress in, political 
prisoners In, 161, 293 ; escape 
of (May 28), 309 
Pallavicino, — , originates aUiance 
with Cavour, 63-4 ; president of 
Italian National Society, 65 ; 
succeeded by Garibaldi, 165 
note 2 
Palmer, Capt., 320 and note ■* 
Palmerston, Viscount, on Haynau 
affair, 24 ; withdraws British 
minister from Naples (1856), 61 ; 
returns to power (1859), 116 ; 



refuses to prevent Garibaldi 

from crossing Straits of Messina 

(i860), 4 ; quoted, 49 note ^ 
Panizzi, Anthony, scheme of, for 

releasing Settembrini, 60-1, 69 

note 1 ; Bertani's letter to, quoted, 

166 and note 2 
Pantaleo, Father, valuable work 

by, among Sicilian squadre, 249 ; 

intimacy with Garibaldi, 250 ; 

ceremony of blessing Garibaldi, 

268-9 ; at the Piano della 

Stoppa, 285 ; restores order 

among La Masa's squadre, 297 
Paolucci cited, 182 and note ^, 332, 

344 
Papal States : 

Cavour' s attack on, after Sicilian 
expedition, 2, 216 

Garibaldi's proposed attack on, 
188 and note^, 196, 197 
note ^, 337 ; Cavour's attitude 
towards, 188, 196 note^, 
337 

Plombieres pact as regarding, 77 

Zambianchi's invasion of, 209, 
216-18, 342 
Parco, Garibaldi's move to, 274-6 
Pareda, Manuel [see also Crispi), 

152 and note ^ 
Parma : 

EmiUa, Incorporated In, 120 note ' 

Revolt of (1859), III 
Partinico, 263-4, 270 
Pasolini, Count, 77 
Pavia : 

Contributions from, towards Sici- 
han expedition, 340 

Volunteers from, for Sicilian ex- 
pedition, 218 
Peard, — , with the Cacciatori delle 

Alpi, 88-9, 96 ; cited, 93 note 1, 

96 note 1, 103 note '^, 105-7 notes ; 

quoted, 99-100 
Persano, Adm. Count, 183, 186 ; 

instructions to, regarding arrest 

of Garibaldi, 225-6 
Plana dei Greci : 

Garibaldi's retreat to, and secret 
return from, to Misilmeri, 277- 
81 

Messenger from Palermo to Von 
Mechel arrested in, 282, 316 

Piediscalzi's return to, 158-9 

PUo at, 159 

Situation of, 158, 279 
Pianell, Gen., 43, 135 
Pianto dei Romani, 247 and note ^ 
Piediscalzi, 158, 273 



390 



GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 



Piedmont [for particular towns see 
their names) : 
Annexation of Tuscany and 
Emilia by, see subheading Cen- 
tral Italian States 
Austria, war with (1859) : 

Cacciatori, exploits of, see 

Cacciatori delle Alpi 
Declaration of, 78, 80 
Hungarian apathy in, 103 note ^ 
Italians backward In giving 
military aid in, iio-ii, 113- 

14 
Magenta, battle of, 103, 129 
Mazzini's attitude towards, 84 
Palestro, battle of, 103 
Solferino, battle of, 108, 150 
Villafranca, Peace of, see that 
title 
Central Italian States (Tuscany 
and Emilia) : 
Annexation of, by Piedmont : 
Accomplishment of (i860), 

169 
Demand for, by the States, 

115, 118 
Napoleon's terms for per- 
mitting, I 40-1, 169 
Negotiations concerning, 164 
Protectorate over (1859), 11 1 
Cession of Nice and Savoy by : 
Accomplishment of, 169 
Garibaldi's indignation at, 169- 

70, 172, 175-6, 178 

Napoleon's demand for, 77, 140 

Conspiracy of Naples, Austria and 

the Pope against (1859), 138, 

140, 169, 186 

Crimean war contingent from, 

28-9, 61 
Garibaldi's presence an embar- 
rassment to (1849), 10 
Genoese arsenal plot (1857), 69-70 
Monasteries, question of suppres- 
sion of, 28 
Neapolitan alliance : 

Ferdinand's instructions to his 

son against, 128 
Proposal of, by Piedmont, re- 
jected (May, 1859), 129; simi- 
lar proposal rejected (i860), 
139, 140 
Policy of, change in, under Cavour 

(1856-7), 65-6 
Position of (1848), 26; I1854), 

27-8; (1859), I 
Sicilian attitude towards, 148-9 ; 
Piedmontese Government's at- 
titude towards Sicily, 153 



Piedmont — cont. 

Troops of all Italy enrolled in 
(1859), 78 

Piemonte : 

Arrival of, at Marsala, 234 
Castiglia the captain of, 230, 340 
Dimensions, tonnage, &c., of, 209 

note ^ 
Flag of, 234 note ^ 
Flooding of, at Marsala, 239 
Garibaldi in command of, 209 
Neapolitan capture of, empty, 

239, 242 
Seizure of, for Sicilian expedition, 
200-2 

Pilo, Rosolino, Mazzini's agent, 68 
and note ^, 149 ; Garibaldi's letter 
to (March 15, i860), 168 ; sets 
sail for Sicily (March 25), 159, 
169, 180; in Sicily, 159-60, 192, 
245 ; sends reports from Sicily, 
188 ; kindles beacon fires after 
Calatafimi, 264 ; plan for occupy- 
ing S. Martino, 273 ; death of, 
274 

Pio Nono, Pope, Ferdinand's cru- 
sade on behalf of (1849), 45 ; atti- 
tude of, towards surrender of any 
temporal dominions, 77 and note ; 
Napoleon's alienation from, 118, 
1 40 ; conspiracy of, with Naples 
and Austria against Piedmont, 
138, 140, 169, 186 ; Tyrolese sol- 
diers of , 138; quoted — on change 
of ministry in Great Britain 
(1859), 117 

Pironti, 47 

Pisacane, Carlo, expedition of 1857 
undertaken by, 6S-70, 179-80, 
1S9, 196 

Pisani, 332 

Pitre, Prof., cited, 307 note ', 347 

Piva, Domeoico, 299, 312 

Plombieres, pact of (1858), 76-7 

Poerio, Alessandro, 51 

Poerio, Carlo, trial and condemna- 
tion of, 46-9 ; imprisonment of, 
50-1, 57 ; death of his mother, 
51 ; attitude towards Piedmont, 
67 ; release of, 124 ; friendship 
with Lord and Lady John Russell, 

125 
Poland : 

Hungarian movements in rela- 
tion to, no 
National struggle of, compared 
with that of Italy, 4 
Polizzi, Col., 290 
Porcaro, Baron Vito, 125 



INDEX 



'^9^ 



Porto S. Stefano, 221 
Principale, Gaetano, cited 347 
IrnSl Sicilian expedition con- 
demned by, 224 

Quarto : 

Rock of, 205 a«c? note ^ 

Villa Spinola at, 180-1 and note - 



Raimo>^di, Count, 167 
Rampagallo,j43^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^ 

^fr,9) 120 ;'sends Marquis ViUa- 
marina to Naples, I39 ; in sym- 
pathy with Crispi, 164 

Rendu, D'Azeglio's letter to, quoted, 
183 and note ^ 

Ribotti, Gen., 170, 186 

Ricasoli, Bettino, value of work of 
as Dictator of Tuscany 114 «f'J 
note^ 115, "8, 163; deprecates 
attack on Papal territory 120 
correspondence with Cavour re- 
garding Sicihan expedition, 226-7 

Rile, Sir Cecil Spring, cited, 174 

Ri^r Baron, share of, in SiciUai. 
conspiracy of i860, 154-6 . ^^ 
prisonment of, 160 ; denuncia- 
tion of, by Francesco Riso, 161, 
032; release of (June 19), 326 
Riso Francesco, conspiracy ol, m 
Palermo (April, i860), 154-7 . 
tricked by Maniscalco, 161, 332 , 
effect at Marsala of the conspi- 
racy, 232 
^S?incorporatedin,,.o«<.. 
Peace of ViUafranca opposed by 

113-14 
Revoltof (1859), III ^. 

Union, military, of Tuscany and 
Modena with, 119 . 
Rome, French evacuation ot-- 
scouted, 76; proposed, 196, 
339 • abandoned, 225, 342 
Romeo (political prisoner), 5° 
Rotolo, Cav. Agostmo, 296-8, 

Rubattino! ignorance, ^ostihty, and 
undeserved rewards of, regarding 
Sicilian expedition, 200-1, 340 

Rubicon, River, 119 ^ote 

Ruskin quoted, 79 note ■ 

Russell, Lady Jp^n- cited 125, 
note: Hudson's letter to, on 
cession of Nice and Savoy quoted, 
173 



Russell, Lord John, Italian policy 
of 117-18; friendship with Poerio 
and Braico, 125 ; views on the 
Sicilian expedition, 211, 224; 
refuses to prevent Garibaldi 
from crossing Straits of Messma 
(i860), 4; quoted, 211 

Russell, Odo, 77 note, 78, 117 

France, attitude towards (1859), 

Sicilian expedition condemned 

by, 224 



Sacchi, Col. Gaetano, 171-2 
Saf&, 68 . 

Salemi, 242-4 and note ■ 
Salmour, Count, 129 ..-h ^,, . 

S Anna, Baron, squadre with, 243 , 
■ at Calatafimi, 253, 259 ; nomi- 
nated Governor of Alcamo, 269 

IStS:iiaVe'gend,307-^-^^^ 

|avoy!cLsion of, by Piedmont, see 

Piedmont— Cession 
Scarpa, Paolo, 305 
Schiaffino, death of, 257 
Schwartz, Mme., 33° .^ 

Schwarzenberg, 52 and note ■ 
Scialoia, Antonio, 67 
Settembrini, Luigi, imprisonment of 

^Xry quoted, 59-60; condemns 
Murattist and Mazzinian raove- 

lnts,67;Pifcane^-Pf^f;,°"e 
intended for release of, 68 , re ease 
of, 124; quoted— on condition 
of' Naples, 41-2 , 
Settembrini, Raffaele, 125 
Settimo, Ruggero, 14? . ^ 

Sforza, Major ]Oins Landi, 247 . at 
Pianto dei Romani, 248, f 53 . at 
Calatafimi, 253, 255, 342 , blames 
Landi, 262 
Sgarallino, 210 

Shaftesbury, Lord, 23 ^ ,y^ i/ij 
Sicilian expedition of Garibaldi 
and the Thousand : 

nrtf ct Wt behmd, .07-8 

and note 
Manufacture of, 223, 321 

Purchase of, 321 orbetello 

Requisitioning of, at Orbeteno, 

Shortage of, 215, 3H. 32o and 

Wast" of, by squadre, 29S, 303, 
310 



392 



GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 



Sicilian expedition — conf. 
Artillery of : 

Corleone, retreat towards, 279 ; 
engagement against Von 
Mechel, 282 
Description of, 215-16 
Renda to Parco, transport 
from, 276 and note 1 
Banner of, captured at Calatafimi, 

257 note 1 

Calatafimi, battle of, see that title 

Cavour's attitude towards — 

before its start, 5-6, 162-3, 

188-9, 195-7 «w^ *^o<e ^ 198, 

336-9 ; after its start, 218, 

226, 325 

Coaling of, at Porto S. Stefano, 

221 
Conditions justifying, demanded 

by Garibaldi, 22, 151, 163 
Desertions to : 

Neapolitan troops, from, 135, 

321 
Piedmontese royal troops, from 
— discouraged, 171-2, 195, 
221 ; few effected, 172, 195 
Disappointment of members of, 
with Sicilians, 240, 302-3, 305, 
310 and note ^, 323 
Disciplining of, 220 
Dress of, 204, 267 
Embarkation of — preparations, 
200-3 ; send-off, 203-5 and 
note ; start, 206 ; actual em- 
barkation, 207 and note 
Enthusiasm promoting, 195 
European attitude towards, 224- 

5. 227 
Finances of, 340-1 
Genoese Carabineers, see that title 
Jesuits expelled by, from Sicily, 

241 
Landing of, at Marsala, 234-8 

and notes 
Methods of warfare pursued by 
—bayonet charges, 255 ; group 
rushes, 256 note ^ 
Muskets supplied to, 184-5 and 

note 2, 197-8, 221 
Neapolitan defence against : 
Military and naval errors, 232, 
236, 238, 244, 248, 278-9, 
281-2, 308-9, 315-16 
Numbers engaged in : 
Authorities for, 246 note 2 
Battalions and companies, 
nominal strength of, 247 
note ' 
Calatafimi, at, 247 and note ^ 



Sicilian expedition : Neapolitan 
defence against: Numbers 
engaged in — cont. 
Palermo, at, see Palermo- 
Garrison 
Preparations for, 229, 235 

Numbers comprising, at the 
start, 209 ; at Talamone, 209 
note 2j 218 

Organisation of, into companies, 
Sec, 219 

Palermo, see that title 

Professions, places of origin, &c., 
of members of, 218-19 

Renda, encampment at, 270 and 
note ■'-74 

ReveilU of, 251 

Route of, by land — Marsala to 
Salemi, 242 ; to Vita and the 
Pietralunga, 252 ; Calatafimi 
to Alcamo, 268 ; Partinico, 
Borgetto, and Renda, 2703 
Renda to Parco, 274-6, 344 ; 
Cozzo di Crasto to Plana dei 
Greci, 277-8 ; Chianettu and 
Marineo to Misilmeri, 280-1, 
345 ; Gibilrossa to Palermo, 
272, 295-7, 346-7 

Route of, by sea, 221, 227 and 
note ^, 229, 230 

Ru;nours as to, 170, 180 

Sq ladre joining : 

Albanians at Campanaro, 278 
Ammunition wasted by, 298, 

303> 310 

Calatafimi, at, 253, 259 

Description of, 245-6 

Few hundred with Garibaldi 
from Parco, 288 note 2 

Increase in numbers of, 249 

La Masa's 3000 — at Gibil- 
rossa, 275 ; in panic at 
Garibaldi's partial retreat, 
277 ; eager for attack on 
Palermo, 287 ; assigned a 
front place for attack on 
Palermo, 287-8 ; disorder 
on the advance, 296-7 ; 
panic at the Ponte dell' 
Ammiraglio, 298-9 ; at the 
Porta Termini barricade, 
300-1 

Liadi made nervous by, 248 

M 'ndy's encounter with, 
7.<n 

Palermo, engaged in attack 
and capture of, see under 
Palermo — Garibaldi's attack 

Rampagallo, at, 243 



INDEX 



393 



Sicilian expedition — cont. 

Volunteers (Italian) for, eager- 
ness of, 194 

War-cry of, 212, 227 
Sic ly {for particular districts, towns, 
&-C., see their names) : 

Albanians in, 158-9, 245, 278, 
345; death of their leader, 
274 

Church in, attitude of, towards 
Neapolitan rule, 144, 241-2, 
269, 304 

Committees for the succour of, 
194 

Compagni d'armi, 147, 159, 275 

Condition of (1852), 146 and 
note ^-7 

Conscription in — islanders' atti- 
tude towards, 145 ; ordered 
by Garibaldi, 249 ; disregarded, 

323 

Garibaldi invited to help, 151, 
163 ; his willingness to rouse 
and aid rebellion in, 151, 334 ; 
his expedition with the Thou- 
sand, see Sicilian expedition 

Inland towns of, 157-8 

Jesuits expelled from, by Gari- 
baldi, 241 

Macino abolished by Garibaldi, 
269-70 

Maniscalco's rule in, 147 

Mazzlni's conspiracies in (1850-8), 
149-50 

Military service hated in, 144-5 
[see also subheading, Conscrip- 
tion) 

Neapolitan rule, attitude to- 
wards, 144-5, 148 

Piedmont, attitude towards, 148- 
9 ; attitude of, 153 

Poverty and misery in, 145 and 
note "• 

Racial divisions of localities in, 

143 
Revolution of 1820, 40 
Revolution of 1848, 44, 145 ; 

reconquest by Filangieri, 44, 

131, 146-7 
Revolution of i860 (see also 
Sicilian expedition) : 

Gancia rising (Apr. 4), 154-6, 
158, 161 

Instigation of, 153-4 

Pilo's arrival heralding Gari- 
baldi, 159 

Squadre in, 157-9 and note {see 
also under Sicilian expedi- 
tion) 



Sicily— co«/. 

Ribotti, proposed expedition of, 

170, 186 
Roads in, 146, 247 
Roman Catholicism of, 144 

{see also subheading Church) 
Squadre in revolution of i860: 
April, activities in, 157-9 

and note 
May, during, with Garibaldi, 
see Sicilian expedition — 
Squadre 

Simonetta, 90 

Sir tori — career and estimate of, 
187; interview with Cavour, 187 
and noies-8 and note *, 336-7 ; 
pessimistic about Sicilian ex- 
pedition, 188 and note *, 193, 198, 
204, 268 ; at Marsala, 240, 241 ; 
at Salemi, 250 ; saves Garibaldi's 
life at Calatafimi, 258, 261 ; ad- 
vocates attack on Palermo, 284 
note 1 ; captures Montalto gate and 
bastion, 312 ; withstands Von 
Mechel and is wounded a third 
time, 317; cited, 162 and note 

Solferino, battle of, 108, 150 

Soncinl, 194 

Spaventa, Silvio, friendship of, 
with Settembrini, 60 ; refuses 
liberation by Pisacane's expedi- 
tion, 68 ; release of, 124 

Stanmore, Lord, cited, 52, note ^ 

Strazzera, 231 

Susini family, 31 

Swan, Sir J. Wilson, cited, 25 

Swan, Miss Mary, 329 

Swiss mercenaries in Neapolitan 
army, departure of, from Sicily, 
137, 152 



Talamone, 210-13 

Tedaldi, Col. Cav. Francesco, cited, 

148 note 1, 157 note ^, 292 and 

note " 
Tedaldi family, 292, 304-5 
Temple (British minister at Naples), 

60, 61 
Termini : 

Occupation of, by Neapolitans, 
159 and note ; bombardment, 

275 
Patriotism of, 159 note, 275 
Thousand, the, see Sicilian expedi- 
tion 
Times : 

Ferdinand II abandoned by 
(1851), 53 



394 



GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND 



Times — cont. 

Pro- Austrian attitude of, 24 
Pro-Italian tone adopted by 
(May 1S59), 86 note S 117 

Trapani, garrison of, 245, 264 note ^ 

Tre Ponti, 105-6 

Treaties : 

Piombieres, pact of, 76-7 
Villafranca, Peace of, see that title 

Trecchi, — , 172 ; Tiirr's letter to, 
214 ; Cavour's attitude towards, 

339 

Treitschke cited, 7 

Tiikory, 298, 300 

Tiirr, Col., career of, 213 ; rashness 
of, at Ponte S . Giacomo, 1 05-6 ; ob- 
tains ammunition from Orbetello 
commandant, 213-15; atilarsala, 
234 ; at Calatafimi, 259 ; in 
Palermo, 312 ; at Neapolitan 
evacuation, 324 ; cited, 229 
note 3, 287 note ^, 346 ; quoted, 
315 ; assertions of, as to his 
advice influencing Garibaldi, 346 ; 
estimate of, 214 and note ; other- 
%vise mentioned, 218, 250, 251 

Tuscany : 

Annexation of, to Piedmont, see 
under Piedmont — Central 
Italian States 
Peace of Villafranca opposed by, 

113-14 
Revolt of (1859), III 
Union, military, of Modena and 

the Romagna with, iig 
Volunteers from, for Sicilian 

expedition, 210 ; detailed for 

attack on Papal States, 216, 

218 note "^ 

Urban, Gen., reputation of, 94 ; 
attacks Varese, 94 ; misstates 
Garibaldi's numbers, 96 ; strength 
of troops under, at Varese and 
Como, 94, 97, 331-2 ; evacuates 
Como, loo-i ; bombards Varese, 
102 ; ordered partially to retire, 
102-3 

Vasca, Commandant, 325 note ^ 
Varese, battle of, 92-6 and notes, 

331 

ValteUine mountaineers, 93 and 
note 2, 107 

Vecchi, Augusto, 180 ; Garibaldi's 
letter to, quoted, 17 ; on Gari- 
baldi's life at Caprera, quoted, 
35-6 ; cited, 329, 330 



Vecchi the Younger, see La Bolina 

Velletri, 21, 45 

\'enetia : 

Austrian rule in, 41; ended (i 866), 2 

Manin's defence of Republic 

and surrender to the Aus- 

trians, 9 

Volunteers from, for Sicilian 

expedition, 218 

Venosta, EmiUo Visconti, 93 

Venosta, Giovanni Visconti, cited, 
104, 107-8 ; quoted, 107 

Victor Emmanuel, King, bravery 
and loyalty of (1S49), 10; the' 
Orsini affair — letter to Napoleon 
III, 72 ; Speech to Parliament, 
(1859), 79 ; Garibaldi's first 
inter\aew with (Mar. 1859), 84; 
victory at Palestro, 103 ; attitude 
towards Peace of Villafranca, 
1 1 2-3 ; sentiments of, towards 
Napoleon III, 11 2-3 and note"^ ; 
persuades Garibaldi to patience, 
121 ; idea for Garibaldi's in- 
vasion of the Marches, 122 ; 
attitude towards Garibaldi's 
Sicilian expedition, 162, 171, 
186, 197, 338 ; letter to Francis 
II of Naples, quoted, 185-6 ; 
triumphal progress through newly 
annexed territories, 185, 186, 197; 
name of, in war-cry of Sicilian 
expedition, 212, 227 ; Sicilian 
dictatorship assumed in name of, 
239, 249 ; Sicilian enthusiasm 
for, 244 ; pardons commandant 
of Orbetello, 215 ; acknowledged 
as King of Italy (Nov. i860), 
I ; estimate of, 73 ; Garibaldi's 
attitude towards, 65, 84, 121, 
165, 178; otherwise mentioned, 
26, 76, 105, 173-4 

Victoria, Queen, pro-Austrian atti- 
tude of, 117 

Villafranca, Peace of ; 

British attitude towards, 115, 

117-18 
Circumstances of, iio-ii 
Italian attitude towards, 108, 

112-13, 115, 118, 140 
Signing of, by Victor Emanuel, 

113 
Terms of, 111-12 

Villamarina, Marquis, mission of, 
to Naples, 139 ; Cavour's corre- 
spondence with, quoted, 141, 
169 

Vltali, Bartolo, cited, 276, note \ 
344 



INDEX 



395 



Von jMechel, Col., success of, near 
Monreale, 273 ; moves to occupy 
position commanding Garibaldi's 
camp, 277; repeUed by retreating 
Garabaldini, 278 ; deluded by 
Garibaldi's feint arrives at 
Chiusa, 281-2 ; return to Paler- 
mo (May 30), 315 and note ■*, 316 ; 
disregards truce, 3 1 6-1 8 ; ordered 
to attack after armistice, 321 ; 
order countermanded, 322 ; eva- 
cuates Palermo, 324 ; estimate 
of, 279, 281, 316 

Walewski. Napoleon's attitude 
towards, 76 



Watson, Dr. Spence, cited, 25 

Webster, Mr., quoted, 330 

Wilmot, Lieut., visits Garibaldi's 
headquarters at the Piano della 
Stoppa, 285 ; interview with 
Garibaldi in Palermo, 311 ; pro- 
tests against Von Mechel's vio- 
lation of truce, 317 ; cited, 318 
note 1 

Winnington-Ingram, Capt., inter- 
views Acton, 237 ; cited, 156 
note ^, 233 notes ^' ^ ; quoted, 238 



Zambianchi, — , Papal invasion 
under, 209, 216-18, 342 ; estimate 
of, 217 



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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 

PAET III. 

SARATOGA AND BRANDYWINE-V ALLEY FORGE- 
ENGLAND AND FRANCE AT WAR. 

BY THE 

Rt. Hon. Sir GEORGE OTTO TREVELYAN, Bart. 

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